Participatory and beneficiary-based approaches to the evaluation of humanitarian programmes

This paper seeks to assess the extent to which refugee and humanitarian agencies have used participatory and beneficiary based methodologies in their evaluation processes. A review of numerous guidelines for evaluation and analyses of best practice in the humanitarian field demonstrate that there is increasing interest in the use of such methodologies amongst donors, UN and other international organizations and NGOs. A review of recent evaluation reports and consultations with evaluators and agency employees, however, suggests that the best practice which is proposed by numerous evaluation guidelines and handbooks has not yet become common practice.