"With this glossary, the DAC Working Group on Evaluation for Development Cooperation hopes to facilitate and improve dialogue and understanding among all those involved in development activities and their evaluation, whether in partner countries, development organizations and banks, or nongovernment
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al organizations. It should serve as a valuable guide in evaluation education and training as well as in practical development work." (Back cover)
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"Contains 11 studies, mainly on information projects, each with between four and eight stories told by people involved in those studies. Each set of stories is prefaced by a summary of the study." (commbox)
"This working paper was conceived to stimulate debate on new trends in the evaluation function within the Post-Paris new Aid architecture and the UN Reform, and to explore the status of the evaluation function in CIS countries. Though this paper is not a technical manual or handbook, the authors mad
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e every effort to offer practical proposals on how to implement a democratic approach to evaluation.
The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, Segone presents the evolution of the evaluation function in the context of UN Reform and a changing Aid architecture. This part is mainly based on the discussion and outcomes of the IDEAS 1st Biennial Conference held in New Delhi in 2005 and conceptual discussions within the UN. Samuel Bickel presents an assessment of the status of the evaluation status worldwide, based on the address he delivered at the 2005 IPEN Conference held in Kazakhstan. Quesnel introduces how the growing professional evaluation organizations are instrumental to strengthen the evaluation function worldwide. Segone then presents thoughts on the scope of the evaluation function.
In the second part Segone proposes a strategy for improving the evaluation function through strengthening a pro-evaluation culture and a democratic approach to evaluation. Kushner, one of the world’s leading thinkers on Democratic evaluation, presents his thinking on the relationship between Evaluation and Democracy.
In the third part, six members of IPEN, coordinated by Kuzmin, analyse the evaluation function in CIS countries, giving important information on its status and trends. This piece is particularly important as it is one of the few existing documents on the evaluation function in CIS countries. Finally, the annexes give practical information on how to access international evaluation resources via the Internet and present the UN Evaluation Norms and Standards and guidelines on how to develop evaluation ToR." (Introduction, page 8)
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"Ethnography is a form of research that can give grant makers — and, often, grantees — a close, nuanced, and evolving look at an organization, a culture, or a process of change. Trained as participant observers, ethnographers work from a vantage point that is both inside and outside the object o
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f their study. As outside observers, ethnographers bring a fresh eye, professional skills of documentation and analysis, and an understanding of the unfolding work. In the words of a researcher who employs the technique, they “can explore what the people inside are taking for granted.” As inside participants, they involve themselves deeply in that work, so as to experience its detail and broad themes. This dual perspective allows a sensitive ethnographer to distill knowledge from practice in a way that’s rarely possible for full insiders or more distanced outsiders." (Page 2)
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