Dara - Evaluation

DARA promotes a culture of evaluation and learning in the humanitarian action and international development fields. For DARA, the overall aim of evaluation is learning, accountability – whether this is targeting beneficiaries, donors, partners or implementing agencies, improvement of organisational performance, establishment of a participative processes and empowerment of the marginalised and less fortunate.

DARA’s commitment to the evaluation field follows some ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES OF EVALUATION outlined below:

1. Evaluation is first and foremost a learning and accountability exercise. Evaluations are designed so as to generate knowledge on the strengths and weaknesses of a given intervention (project or programme), enabling the involved partners and stakeholder to acquire a comprehensive understanding of how to introduce suggested changes that may benefit interventions, outcomes and impacts.

2. The evaluation must be based on: 1) a comprehensive knowledge of the context and conditions in which the interventions take place; 2) the interests that are guiding or in some way affecting the interventions; and 3) the possibilities to achieve the established goals.

3. The evaluation should be flexible and take into consideration each project's preparatory work, presumptions, time framework and institutional goals.

4. The evaluation must involve every partner in the project as actively as possible.

5. The evaluation should be perceived by the stakeholders as an opportunity to strengthen bonds among the partners, and to create ways to increase ownership of evaluation findings.

6. The evaluator must fully respect the needs and concerns of the interviewee and all data should be treated with total confidentiality.

7. The evaluation should allow for a shared and transparent interpretation of findings, including as many partners as possible.

8. The evaluation should collect data using both qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to ensure that the assessment is carried out as precisely as possible. Validation of findings is an inherent part of any evaluation process.

9. The evaluation should engage the stakeholdres in the discussion of the most important issues, before, during and after the evaluation, so that they understand how to use the evaluation's results.

10. Evaluations typically target the following criteria (according to DAC principles): relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.