aes24 International Evaluation Conference

Authors: Linda Kelly (Praxis Consultants), Mary Raori (UNDP Pacific, FJ)

This presentation outlines an approach to program assessment of a long-term governance program working across the Pacific, the UNDP Governance for Resilience program. It tells the story of the program’s maturing evaluation approach which has shifted from serving the information needs of those with money and power to focus more particularly on the values and interests of local participants and partners..
Despite the well-documented limitations of single methodology evaluation approaches for complex programs, many international development donors and corresponding international and regional organisations, continue to require program assessment that serves their needs and values. Typically, this includes narrowing evaluation to assessment against quantitative indicators. Notwithstanding the extensive limitations of this approach, it serves the (usually short-term) needs of international donors and other large bureaucracies. It generates simple information that can be communicated and showcased in uncritical forms. It provides numbers that are easily aggregated and used for concise reporting to senior and political masters.
Such approaches risk crowding out attention to the information needs of other participants and undermine attempts to support more locally led processes. This presentation will explain how this long-term and large-scale program has shifted, making use of a values-based evaluative approach to better serve the interests of partners and participants in the Pacific. This has involved both a methodological and political shift, broadening the range of data collection and analysis methodologies and approaches, increasing resourcing to accommodate different types of data and data collection and internal and external advocacy. This one program experience echoes wider views across the Pacific about the limitations of externally imposed measures and the lack of attention to what is valued by pacific countries and people.