“Whose evaluation is it anyway?”

Power and stakeholder accountability issues in international development and civil society support. How can Monitoring & Evaluation respond?

Michael Hammer, Bishkek, Sep 2014

Drivers of the global ‘results’ agenda

• Donor domestic political and financial factors push for greater scrutiny of development programmes and funding. In some countries this also involves • reduction of aid, • cross-over use of development funding for trade promotion, climate change

adaption or to address peace and conflict purposes• Cuts and consolidation of development administration capacity

• Poverty alleviation and ‘catching up’ against MDG goals focuses attention on low income countries, leading to a crossing of the nominal MIC (Middle Income Country) threshold by a country resulting in quite rapid and cross sector donor withdrawal

• “Aid effectiveness” discourse (Paris (2005), Accra (2008), Busan (2011)) focuses on• Harmonisation of donor approaches• Country ownership of aid programmes• Transparency, and accountability for results

Practical implications

• High dependency of majority of NGOs on donor funding biases internal and external accountability focus towards source of revenue

• NGOs engage in internal and external comparative scrutiny• Greater openness to external benchmarking and standards

• HAP, One World Trust, ISO• Common reporting and self-regulatory frameworks

• IATI, INGO Charter / GRI reporting, national level self-regulation schemes• Stricter and more quantitative internal reporting and impact

frameworks• More limited donor capacity leads to • larger contracts for which fund-management arrangements are sought, • More standardised and quantitative approaches to evaluation and

impact assessment approaches• Reduced learning and uptake of programme results and lessons

For whom do we evaluate?

• Can issues of power and accountability be addressed through methodology?

• How can donor pressures for use of particular methodologies, which produce answers oriented at donor demands, be resisted and donors convinced to accept different approaches?

• Can discrepancies between discourse (beneficiary orientation etc.) and practice (donor orientation) be sufficiently addressed through methodologies?

Evaluation

Donors

Beneficiaries

Peer programmes

Governments

Civil society actors

Research and Policy

community

Some difficult questions

• Who owns the process of mapping out stakeholders and defining methodologies?

• What role plays programme and civil support design for the evaluation?

• What consideration needs to be given to the commissioning institution to ensure greatest possible chance of evaluation results?

Choking points in the process

Impa

ct

Rele

vanc

e

Valid

ity

Donor Learning

Evaluation results

Don

or u

ptak

e ca

paci

ty

Colla

bora

tive

prog

ram

me

and

supp

ort d

esig

n

Feedback loop into design

Consequences of the MDG to SDG transition

• Greater complexity as private sector and private resources will be relied on much more

• Much more explicit intersection of development, human rights, peace and security and climate change debates will generate political challenges in implementation

• Complicated mapping from 8 MDGs to around 17 SDGs

8 MDGs• To halve the number of

undernourished people• To achieve

universal primary education• To promote gender equality

and empower women• To reduce child mortality• To improve maternal health• To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria,

and other diseases• To ensure environmental

sustainability• To develop a global

partnership for development

17 SDGs

• End poverty in all its forms everywhere• End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote

sustainable agriculture• Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages• Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning

opportunities for all• Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls• Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all• Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all• Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and

productive employment and decent work for all• Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation

and foster innovation• Reduce inequality within and among countries• Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable• Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns• Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts• Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for

sustainable development• Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems,

sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

• Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.