Making Evaluations Matter: A practical guide for evaluators.

This guide is primarily for evaluators working in the international development
sector. However, if you are a commissioner of an evaluation, an
evaluation manager or a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) officer, you
too will find it useful.
Too often evaluations are shelved, with very little being done to bring
about change within organisations that requested the evaluation in the
first place. This guide will explain how you can make your evaluations
more useful. It will help you to better understand some conceptual issues
and appreciate how evaluations can contribute to changing mindsets
and empowering stakeholders. On a practical level, the guide presents
core guiding principles and pointers on how to design and facilitate
evaluations that matter. Furthermore, it shows you how you can get your
primary intended users and other key stakeholders to contribute effectively
to the evaluation process.
Learning is an important aspect of any evaluation. Without this, it would
be difficult for change to take place at any level. A case is also made for
evaluations to be integrated into the existing learning process within
organisations. Strategic questions such as ‘Am I doing the right things
for the ‘right’ people?’ and ‘Am I doing things right?’ are also addressed
with a view to improving the way in which organisations manage their
development interventions.
You can be a facilitator of change. You can do this through your interactions
with your colleagues – commissioners, evaluation managers,
evaluators, M&E officers and other key stakeholders – by promoting
good evaluative practice.
We hope that you will enjoy reading this guide and, at the same time,
gain a deeper appreciation of how useful ‘good’ evaluations can be in
strategically managing development interventions and making a difference
in the lives of people.