RE: Challenges of evaluation | Eval Forward

Dear Colleagues,

Good morning from Palestine.

The evaluation challenges in rural development/ food security or agriculture are not much different from what is related to other sectors and even evaluation of policies.

I agree with what colleagues mentioned earlier. From my experience in evaluating agricultural projects in Palestine I found one major issue complicating the evaluation which is the design of projects. Even with the international organizations, results frameworks of programs/ projects are not well defined. Indicators are not well adopted or formulated. The whole theory of change is not clear. This is reflected on the evaluability of the program. For examples, baselines studies when present, are not related to indicators. 

Another major issue: clients of the evaluation (implementers) do not have clear understanding of the evaluation process and methodological approaches. Therefore, the ToR would not be clear, the expectations from the evaluation become not realistic, and as earlier stated, the program design does not allow good monitoring. 

To end up with, a good evaluation implementer should start planning M&E at the first phase of the program cycle, have enough resources, do right things at the right time, especially monitoring. 

Clients of evaluation should understand evaluation practices and know that no M&E can be done without working together with the evaluation team. And they should give enough time for evaluation, not leave it to the last month of the project.

The discussion on this issue never ends. I think evaluation networks (like EvalMENA) should reach clear set of recommendations to enhance evaluation culture and reach common understanding of the M&E on both supply and demand sides.

Good luck

Naser Qadous

Palestinian Evaluation Association