Evaluation of International Programs and
Projects
Links
Current as of
December 16, 2014
Resources
This page contains links to web sites and pages having to do with Evaluation
of International Programs and Projects. They have been selected because of their
intrinsic importance or because they have links to other sites of a similar
nature. The information is divided into the following categories:
The inner structure of many sites is changed frequently with links being removed
and, as a result, links may not always work. In that case, go to the organization's
main page and see if the link has been re-named.
In the consulting world, evaluation is a major product. It is
also taught in most universities, in schools of public and business administration,
among others. While they are mainly oriented to national governments and the
private sector, the concepts can be applied to evaluation at the international
level as well. Here are a few of the sites with material that is particularly
relevant for international evaluation.
- Evaluation: International Journal of Theory, Research and
Practice, a Sage Publication on behalf of the
Tavistock Institute in the UK contains articles on evaluation. While its electronic
version is available by subscription only, Syracuse is a subscriber, so issues
are available in the library.
- American Evaluation Association.
The AEA is"an international professional association of evaluators devoted
to the application and exploration of program evaluation, personnel evaluation,
technology, and many other forms of evaluation." Its website includes
a number of publications on evaluation methods
and standards, links to academic and other training programs in evaluation and a very thorough set of links to other evaluation sites.
- Resources for Methods in Evaluation and Social Research,
a privately-run site that "lists FREE resources for methods in evaluation
and social research. The focus is on "how-to" do evaluation research
and the methods used: surveys, focus groups, sampling, interviews, and other
methods. Most of these links are to resources that can be read over the web."
- The Research
Methods Knowledge Base. Developed and maintained
by Prof. William M. Trochim, this is an on-line t extbook on specific research
methods.
- WWW Virtual Library:
Evaluation is "an online database of high quality
Internet resources related to social policy evaluation. At present, the database
points to hundreds of web-sites, and each one has been selected and described.
The catalogue is browsable or searchable by subject area." It includes
links to international organizations concerned with evaluation.
The organizations of the United Nations
system that are funded from assessed budgets all have policies calling for evaluation.
Most also encourage self-evaluation and maintain web sites dealing with evaluation.
Here are some of the most interesting sites..
A slightly different set of organizations undertake operational
activities for development, in the form of technical co-operation and humanitarian
assistance. Their site emphasize evaluation of field-level projects. Here are
some of the more useful sites:
- ILO PROGEVAL data base. Maintained
by the Evaluation Unit of the Bureau of Programming and Management, "PROGEVAL
contains bibliographical references and summaries of evaluation reports on
technical cooperation programmes and projects executed by the ILO and other
international organizations. It also consists of references to evaluation
guidelines and other publications on methodological approaches to evaluation."
- United Nations Development
Programme Evaluation Office. The site is one of the most thorough in the system, and includes
the full text of the Handbook on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating for Results,
as well as an indexed Evaluation
Resources Centre.
- UNICEF Research
and Evaluation. The site includes texts on monitoring methods,
on evaluation methods and materials, as
well as an Evaluation Database on concluded UNICEF evaluations. The Evaluation Database also includes links to evaluation databases of other organizations.
- UN High Commissioner for Refugees Research/Evaluation.
This is maintained by UNHCR's Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit (EPAU) that
undertakes systematic analysis and assessment of UNHCR projects, programmes,
practices and policies. The site contains the texts of all evaluation reports prepared since 1994.
- International Fund for Agricultural Development Evaluation.
IFAD's grants are intended to support innovative approaches and as a result,
the organization has paid particular attention to evaluation. Its site is
particularly rich and contains material on methods, a searchable knowledge base
of evaluation results, and training material.
The World Bank and the development banks have had a long-term
commitment to evaluation. Since they support investment projects, their evaluations
are typically larger and more complex than those done by the other UN system
operational agencies. The banks all have operations evaluation departments.
There are a number of intergovernmental organizations that are not part of
the UN (and are not development banks) that sponsor or monitor evaluations.
Here are some of the main ones..
Bilateral development agencies have often been pioneers in developing evaluation
methodologies..
Non-governmental organizations have an interest also in
evaluation. Most of the sites of major NGOs do not include material on evaluation,
however. You can, however, use search engines within sites to pull down whatever
is there. Here are a few examples.
- InterAction (The American
Council for Voluntary International Action) has set up a websiteon evaluation
resources as well as an Evaluation Interest Group to "to stimulate enthusiasm
and creativity for developing effective evaluation systems. The EIG works
to advance the state-of-the-art in PVO evaluations from both the policy and
practice perspectives." The Group maintains a listserv.
- Amnesty International. Amnesty produced an excellent, short
manual, entitled Evaluation:
A Beginners Guide.
- WorldVision.
A religious-based NGO that works in both humanitarian and development assistance.
The page describes evaluation policy and a search on the term "evaluation"
will produce links to evaluation reports.
- Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF). While
the site does not have a section on evaluation, MSF produces a number of evaluation
studies, including Fiona Terry's "book about the failure of international
humanitarian organizations to take into consideration a wider political context
before providing aid, Condemned
to repeat?: The paradox of humanitarian action
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John R. Mathiason.
© 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, John R. Mathiason. All rights reserved.
Revised:
December 16, 2014