Are Evaluations Useful: Cases from Swedish Development Co-Operation

Are Evaluations Useful: Cases from Swedish Development Co-Operation

This report evaluates Sida's evaluations, finding that they are less influential, or influential in different ways than the evaluators themselves appear to have envisioned. The authors find that stakeholders influence the evaluation findings, that the evaluations form part of an ongoing dialog, and that they may be used in support of preexisting decisions or by outsiders to challenge such decisions.

It seems to me that they should have realized these things without needing to do the study. It is very refreshing to see evaluators taking evaluators to task, however!

By Jerker Carlsson et al., Sida Studies in Evaluation, 99/1, Sida, 1999. (PDF, 78 pages.)