Use of Evaluations in the Norwegian Development Cooperation System

This evaluation report was commissioned by the Norad Evaluation Department
in order to respond to the need for understanding whether and how the
evaluations it conducts are used, and how the systems for learning from and
using those evaluations can be improved.
Evaluation use is important because, unlike basic research, evaluation is
intended to provide accountability for achieving results from the use of funding,
and learning from experience in ways that can be put to practical use. The
extensive literature on evaluation use suggests that evaluation can affect policy
and operational decisions. Much attention focuses on the explicit use of
evaluation through the implementation of recommendations. While this is an
important kind of evaluation use, this study highlights a number of ways in which
evaluations can have more indirect influence on actions, perceptions, and even
how specific issues are conceptualized.
In conducting this evaluation the team used a mixed-methods approach. This
entailed document reviews, interviews with key informants, case studies of four
specific evaluations, detailed review of the content and structure of related
evaluation reports, a citation search for Norad evaluations, and a comparative
organizational analysis of evaluation units in Norad peer organizations.