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An Introduction To Evaluation

Evaluation is a systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and using information about a program to determine its effectiveness and inform future decisions. It assesses whether program activities achieved intended outcomes, while monitoring tracks program implementation. Evaluations commonly understand why activities were or were not implemented as planned, determine a program's effects, attribute changes to the intervention, identify unintended consequences, and assess cost-effectiveness. For example, monitoring that trainings for health workers occurred cannot determine if knowledge increased, but evaluation provides objective evidence to answer that question.

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142 views1 page

An Introduction To Evaluation

Evaluation is a systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and using information about a program to determine its effectiveness and inform future decisions. It assesses whether program activities achieved intended outcomes, while monitoring tracks program implementation. Evaluations commonly understand why activities were or were not implemented as planned, determine a program's effects, attribute changes to the intervention, identify unintended consequences, and assess cost-effectiveness. For example, monitoring that trainings for health workers occurred cannot determine if knowledge increased, but evaluation provides objective evidence to answer that question.

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Naa Odoi
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An Introduction to Evaluation

When you work on a program, how do you know if the program really made a difference in the lives
of the people it intended to serve? How can you tell if it achieved what it set out to do? This is where
evaluation plays an essential role. Evaluation is a systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and using
information about a program’s design, implementation, and results to determine its effectiveness and
inform future decisions about program implementation.

Evaluation works jointly with monitoring to assess and improve programs; however, there are many
ways in which the two processes are distinct from one another. While monitoring routinely tracks the
progress of program activities, evaluation assesses the extent to which those activities resulted in
achievement of program outcomes. Evaluations are commonly used to:

● Understand why activities have (or have not) been implemented as planned

● Explain whether the program had an effect

● Determine the extent to which measured or observed changes can be attributed to the intervention

● Describe if the intervention had any unintended consequences

● Assess whether a program was cost-effective

Let’s consider an example. Imagine your work plan includes an activity to conduct 10 trainings for
community health workers in administering contraceptive injections to women of reproductive age.
Monitoring can tell us how many trainings were conducted and how many community health workers
were trained from each target district. This information is very helpful in terms of knowing what the
program is doing and what progress has been made. Let’s assume all the trainings were completed on
time. The facilitators tell you they felt the trainings were a huge success and that the “community health
workers have increased their knowledge about contraceptive injections.” Based on the information we
have; can we say that the trainings made a difference in the health workers’ knowledge?

No, we cannot because we have no evidence to back up that statement. Trainers’ perceptions of how
well the trainings went are not sufficient to make this conclusion, nor is the fact that trainings were
completed on time. But an evaluation can give us that necessary evidence. It helps us to objectively
answer the question of whether or not the trainings made a difference.

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