Hivos values working with Theory of Change (ToC) as an appropriate approach to guide its strategic thinking and action, as well as its collaborative action with others. The use of a ToC approach fosters critical questioning of all aspects of change interventions and supports adaptive planning and...

Weiss demonstrates in her article how the rational of conducting an evaluation takes place in a political context, and hence evaluators should recognize the presence of political decisions and the political arena. The author argues that knowing these political constraints is a precondition for...

This book is the first of a series on the institutionalisation of evaluation from a global perspective. This book focuses on the instiutionalisation of evaluation in twelve European countries.

This book is the second one in the Studies in the Institutionalization of Evaluation-series with the goal of examining the institutionalisation of evaluation viewed from a global perspective.

This paper of CEDIL examines the current state of each of the waves (outcome monitoring, impact evaluation, systematic reviews and knowledge brokering) of the evidence revolution. The paper offers a critical perspective on each wave, and discuss the implications for evaluation in the field of...

This paper of CEDIL looks at the technical issues associated with the representation of Theories of Change and the implications of design choices for the evaluability of those theories.

This paper by CEDIL includes the use of innovative techniques to form the specific evaluative questions being asked and tested, to gather the right type of data and information on outcomes and intermediating variables, to explain findings and to disseminate them to the appropriate decision-makers...

The lack of adequate measures to capture relevant factors, and the prevalence of measurement error in existing ones, often constitute the main impediment to robust policy evaluation. Random assignment of a given treatment, when feasible, may allow for the identification of causal effects, given that...

Systematic reviews summarise and synthesise the global evidence about an intervention. By incorporating causal chain analysis, a systematic review moves beyond the question of ‘does it work?’ to ‘why does it work, for whom, under what circumstances and at what cost?’. The causal chain analysis...

This brief takes a practical, how-to approach in outlining ten steps for building a middle-level theory of change.

In the CEDIL Methods brief, ‘Evaluating complex interventions: What are appropriate methods?’ we identify four types of complex development interventions: long causal chain interventions, multicomponent interventions, portfolio interventions, and system-level interventions. These interventions are...

Timely evaluations produce results when they are needed to inform decision making while using appropriate, rigorous designs. While traditionally evaluations are carried out at the end of a programme, this brief explores methods for evaluation during the course of a programme. Such approaches are...

Choosing appropriate approaches and methods are pre-requisites for credible, independent and useful evaluation exercises in the United Nations. The Compendium of Evaluation Methods Reviewed is a guidance document resulting from discussions among members of the UNEG Working Group on Evaluation...

Impact evaluations are studies that attempt to measure the causal impact of a project, program or policy on one or more outcomes of. This book provides a comprehensive exposition of how to conduct impact evaluations. Part I provides an overview of impact evaluations and comprises five chapters which...