Evaluating Capacity Development: What do We Really want to Know?
| Author | Fiona Kotvojs,Rosalind Hurworth |
| Date | 01 March 2013 |
| Published date | 01 March 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X1301300102 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
4Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2013
Evaluating capacity development:
what do we really want to know?
Capacity development is core to the activities supported by most
development assistance agencies. However, the development of capacity
is rarely evaluated. Where it is evaluated, the quality of evaluations is usually
poor. Furthermore, evaluations of capacity development programs have
rarely met the utility standard. In particular, they seldom provide the types
of information that intended users need. Consequently, where evaluations
have been undertaken, it is dicult to identify the inuence these have
made on program implementation or capacity development policy.
Patton (2002) suggests that for evaluations to be utilised, they need to
answer questions that are of interest to intended users. Consequently,
this article attempts to identify the types of questions intended users
of evaluations of donor-funded capacity development programs want
addressed.
The article outlines the rst stage of broader research that investigates a
framework for evaluating capacity development initiatives. The research
aimed to identify questions that intended users would want answered by
an evaluation of capacity development.
Findings presented in this article result from an analysis of 54 interviews
held with a range of intended user groups. These groups include: donors
(those responsible for the program, senior managers and internal evaluation
specialists); those in the partner agency (partner government executive,
counterparts1 and managers); those working directly on the program
(managers and advisers/consultants); and evaluators. This research found
that there was one particular question each user group wanted evaluations
of capacity development to answer. Beyond this, the broad questions
user groups wanted answered and the focus of these varied. Finally,
there appeared to be little relationship between questions users wanted
answered and those generally used for capacity development evaluations,
which are based on the criteria established by the Development Assistance
Committee (DAC 1991).
Introduction
Over the last 10 to 15 years, the focus of development assistance has moved to the
provision of support for what is known as ‘capacity development’. This move is
due to both individual agencies recognising the dependency of sustainability on
capacity development (Baser 2011; UNDP 2010; World Bank Institute 2010) and
the broader articulation of the importance of capacity development by the United
Nations. As a result, capacity development is now core to the activities supported
by most development assistance agencies. For instance, it is estimated that at least
25 per cent of donor funds are committed to capacity development (Loveridge 2007;
Watson 2006; Whyte 2004). In some cases, this is even higher; for example, 50 per
cent of World Bank funds for Africa are used to support capacity development
(World Bank 2005).
Fiona Kotvojs
Rosalind Hurworth
Fiona Kotvojs (left) is a freelance monitoring
and evaluation specialist.
Email: <fiona.kotvojs@bigpond.com>
The late Associate Professor Rosalind
Hurworth (right) was formerly the Director
of the Centre for Program Evaluation at the
University of Melbourne.
Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2013, pp. 4–14
REFEREED ARTICLE
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