In their writings, Rose Thompson Coon et al. highlight the need to rethink evaluation in order to incorporate a forward-looking, even futuristic, dimension. Indeed, whilst evaluation enables lessons to be learnt, it does not always provide immediate avenues for their operational application once the intervention has ended. Without an in-depth literature review and uptake by other researchers or designers of future projects, the lessons learned from intervention evaluations tend to be forgotten once the interventions have ended. Thus, evaluation reports would benefit from incorporating more in-depth analyses, enabling this forward-looking and future-oriented vision of development to be better taken into account.
RE: From Hindsight to Foresight: How Evaluation Can Become Future-Informed
Benin
Alexis Adébayo ODOUN-IFA
Expert in MEAL
RAAF/ECOWAS
Posted on 13/04/2026
In their writings, Rose Thompson Coon et al. highlight the need to rethink evaluation in order to incorporate a forward-looking, even futuristic, dimension. Indeed, whilst evaluation enables lessons to be learnt, it does not always provide immediate avenues for their operational application once the intervention has ended. Without an in-depth literature review and uptake by other researchers or designers of future projects, the lessons learned from intervention evaluations tend to be forgotten once the interventions have ended. Thus, evaluation reports would benefit from incorporating more in-depth analyses, enabling this forward-looking and future-oriented vision of development to be better taken into account.