Rapporteurs workshop report: The role of evaluation in learning, change and improving performance

Evaluation has a key position in our strategies for influencing positive change; we cannot learn unless we are aware of what has worked well and what has not – evaluation is a key tool for establishing this crucial information. This is why evaluation has always been central to ALNAP's focus, and why ALNAP has tried to encourage more and better quality evaluation.
Experience seems to show that it is important that evaluation processes follow generally accepted good practice. Certainly to be credible, evaluation needs to follow current best practice in the sector, such as set out in the ALNAP quality proforma or ALNAP Guide for Evaluating Humanitarian Action.

Nevertheless, evaluations are of little use if all they produce is a report that is only read by the next evaluation team. As the chapter on the utilisation of evaluations in the last Review of Humanitarian Action argues, doing evaluations alone is not enough, and evaluation may be best thought of as one part of the learning strategy for change. Evaluation teams may be able to promote change through a series of factors including:
• Who owns the evaluation
• How the evaluation is conducted
• How the evaluation results are disseminated
There may sometimes be a tension between evaluation as a tool for learning and evaluation as an instrument for accountability.

Participants will try to identify how ownership, execution, and dissemination of evaluations can be shaped so that they are more likely to lead to changes in performance. They will also look for how ALNAP can promote these dimensions for future evaluations?