aes19 International Evaluation Conference

Rini Mowson (Clear Horizon), Sarah Leslie (Clear Horizon)

The context within which an evaluand exists matters in evaluation. The AES evaluators' professional learning competency framework dedicates an entire domain to "attention to culture, stakeholders and contexts". Oakley, Pratt and Clayton (1998) argued that evaluation context should be treated as being at the very heart of social development and impact assessment must take full account of the bigger picture in arriving at the conclusion about the success or failure of social development programs. Thus, adapting and managing the evaluation "context" is important to balance ensuring sustainable and impactful evaluation to the end users/beneficiaries, with satisfying the needs of the program team and/or evaluation commissioner.

This paper will seek to answer two questions:: "What are the domains of context that evaluators need to be aware of?" and "How can evaluators adapt their practice to fit the context where they work?'.
The presenters will draw on their experiences in evaluation in multicultural contexts through their work in international development.

The presenters propose three domains of context that evaluators should consider before embarking on an evaluation journey. Firstly, studies demonstrate the importance of applying basic principles of evaluation such as participation, community empowerment and communicating the evaluation results back to beneficiaries, however most evaluations are donor driven exercises. With this limitation, how can evaluators empower funding recipients to enforce the application of basic principles of evaluation. Secondly, how can evaluators address power dynamics in the evaluation process to ensure the evaluation results will represent the real outcomes of the program achieved across different types of beneficiaries. Thirdly, presenters propose that all evaluation should find ways to ensure evaluation will support capacity building of relevant stakeholders including beneficiaries and communities.