How the politicization of aid affects M&E

I attended the SIDW M&E workgroup event on Tuesday, December 13th.

My take away was a lot of what I had been reading about relating to the pushing and pulling of desires from development managers and public officials.

For example, there has recently been friction pertaining to the F-process and USAID, this article highlights:

"...Those involved with the administration of aid projects in Washington are under constant pressure to justify spending on international development to lawmakers, who are much less sympathetic to the idea of development for development's sake-a reality the current economic downturn might aggravate."

"...Critics worry, the F process has reinforced the primacy of politically strategic objectives, like combating terrorism and democratization, as opposed to long-term development goals favored by the country missions, such as education, health care and poverty alleviation."

"Field staff often feel that the type of data requested by the F Bureau does not reflect realities on the ground."

-from here

Capacity.org offers strategies for advancement to overcome the discord.

"However, the evaluation of capacity development can be improved by clarifying the focus and purpose of evaluations, expanding professional development and knowledge sharing among evaluators, drawing on systems thinking, and shifting attention from accountability to learning and programme improvement."

"Experience shows that learning from experience and using evaluation results to improve programmes are enhanced by the direct participation of programme stakeholders in all aspects of the evaluation. Consequently, professionally facilitated participatory evaluations are ideal for promoting learning and programme improvement."

The current state of practice in the evaluation of capacity development, and the challenges facing evaluators, suggest five priorities for improving practice in this area:

1. Expanding professional development
2. Applying concepts and tools from systems thinking and complexity
3. Conducting different types of evaluation for different user groups and needs
4. Enhancing knowledge sharing among evaluators
5. Shifting the emphasis of evaluation from accountability to learning and programme improvement

-from here