I absolutely agree with Dr. Osman. I would like to add some comments.
My experience is as an evaluation manager responsible for project evaluations at the FAO Office in Uruguay.
I have found that it is important for the person responsible for the evaluation, after the evaluation team has been completed, to hold an initial meeting with the team to provide background information about the country (and the area or sector targeted by the project, if applicable) during the execution of the project and at the time of carrying out the evaluation. Likewise, I have found that it is important to hold a meeting with the team at the end of the evaluation to receive preliminary conclusions and add "contextual" considerations that the evaluation manager might understand were not considered or known.
We cannot forget that projects are not "laboratory" initiatives but rather interventions in living communities that are always in absolute relationship to the context that surrounds them. Therefore, project evaluations are not "laboratory evaluations" either, but rather they must be evaluations with a large proportion of common sense, a learning opportunity for all actors participating in the project, and an initiative that allows learning to be achieved for the project. time after the project.
I found that in projects and project evaluations there are always trade-offs on how or what to report between "absolutely objective and traceable charts and tables" of goals, outputs, activities, beneficiaries, and other concepts, and the more subtle understanding of what was the "impact achieved by the project implementation in actors behaviour, environment, and institutional strengthening and development opportunities".
RE: Management matters: exploring the link between management models and the use of evaluations
Uruguay
Vicente Plata
Consultant
Posted on 08/05/2024
Dear Ibtisssem and colleagues,
I absolutely agree with Dr. Osman. I would like to add some comments.
My experience is as an evaluation manager responsible for project evaluations at the FAO Office in Uruguay.
I have found that it is important for the person responsible for the evaluation, after the evaluation team has been completed, to hold an initial meeting with the team to provide background information about the country (and the area or sector targeted by the project, if applicable)
during the execution of the project and at the time of carrying out the evaluation. Likewise, I have found that it is important to hold a meeting with the team at the end of the evaluation to receive preliminary conclusions and add "contextual" considerations that the evaluation manager
might understand were not considered or known.
We cannot forget that projects are not "laboratory" initiatives but rather interventions in living communities that are always in absolute relationship to the context that surrounds them. Therefore, project evaluations are not "laboratory evaluations" either, but rather they must be evaluations with a large proportion of common sense, a learning opportunity for all actors participating in the project, and an initiative that allows learning to be achieved for the project. time after the project.
I found that in projects and project evaluations there are always trade-offs on how or what to report between "absolutely objective and traceable charts and tables" of goals, outputs, activities, beneficiaries, and other concepts, and the more subtle understanding of what was the "impact achieved by the project implementation in actors behaviour, environment, and institutional strengthening and development opportunities".
Thanks for raising such an interesting topic!
Vicente Plata
Uruguay