Three key risks are emerging from the contributions:
Poor programmes and wasted resources: Without evidence, organizations may continue ineffective or poorly targeted programmes, overlook operational realities, and miss opportunities to adapt. As Jackline Musuya warns, organizations may keep investing in approaches that “appear successful in activity reports but produce limited meaningful change.”
Exclusion and weakened accountability: Marginalized communities may be overlooked, beneficiary feedback may not influence decisions, and reduced participation can undermine ethics, quality, independence, and trust. Richard Tinsley points out that while evaluation should be “ultimate voice of the beneficiaries,” they often have limited opportunity to input on the performance of the programmes.
Lost learning and repeated mistakes: Weak documentation and evidence use can also cause organizations to lose institutional knowledge, repeat implementation failures, and make increasingly costly mistakes. As Juliana Adjem Anchang cautions, excluding evidence risks “repeating ineffective approaches” and “missing opportunities for program adaptation and improvement.”
I also want to highlight what Eddah Kanini said about how funding cuts put local evaluators and organizations at risk: “Declining evaluation budgets usually leads to the transfer of financial and operational risks to national evaluators, local consultancy firms and community-based organizations. They may be expected to deliver complex evaluations within compressed timelines and reduced budgets, while still meeting international quality standards. This raises the questions of fairness, equitable partnerships and localization.”
With this, we now continue to our Week 4 of the discussion where we focus on looking ahead. Our final question is:
What needs to change to sustain credible, independent, and useful evaluation in increasingly resource-constrained environments?
I invite everyone to share your insights and experiences. Your practical examples, challenges and proposed solutions can help identify collective priorities and inspire action across the evaluation community.
Everyone is also still welcome to continue sharing your thoughts on our three earlier discussion questions. We look forward to reading your insights and experiences. The discussion will be open until 10 November 2026.
RE: Evaluation under pressure : Strengthening evidence use, accountability and learning amidst funding constraints (Joint EvalforEarth-ALNAP discussion)
Philippines
Mae Albiento
Research Officer
ALNAP
Posted on 03/11/2026
Many thanks to Richard Tinsley, QueenMakarie Constance Jerome, Juliana Adjem Anchang, Eddah Kanini, and JACKLINE MUSUYA for sharing such thoughtful contributions for our Week 3 discussion on the risks of limited evidence use.
Three key risks are emerging from the contributions:
I also want to highlight what Eddah Kanini said about how funding cuts put local evaluators and organizations at risk: “Declining evaluation budgets usually leads to the transfer of financial and operational risks to national evaluators, local consultancy firms and community-based organizations. They may be expected to deliver complex evaluations within compressed timelines and reduced budgets, while still meeting international quality standards. This raises the questions of fairness, equitable partnerships and localization.”
With this, we now continue to our Week 4 of the discussion where we focus on looking ahead. Our final question is:
What needs to change to sustain credible, independent, and useful evaluation in increasingly resource-constrained environments?
I invite everyone to share your insights and experiences. Your practical examples, challenges and proposed solutions can help identify collective priorities and inspire action across the evaluation community.
Everyone is also still welcome to continue sharing your thoughts on our three earlier discussion questions. We look forward to reading your insights and experiences. The discussion will be open until 10 November 2026.