Evaluations are independent and impartial assessments on Finland’s development policy and cooperation. They produce information on the achievement of development policy goals and help the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to understand what works and why. On this basis, the evaluations produce knowledge and recommendations to the management that are used to further develop the quality of development policy and cooperation.
Who evaluates and what is evaluated?
The Development Evaluation Unit of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs is responsible for commissioning large-scale evaluations of strategic relevance, which may cover policy priorities, themes or country programmes. Reporting directly to the Under-Secretary of State for Development Policy, Evaluation Unit is independent of the units and departments in charge of implementing development cooperation and making policy decisions.
The Foreign Ministry’s individual units, departments and Finnish missions abroad commission evaluations of their own development cooperation projects and programmes.
The evaluations are assigned to independent experts.
Evaluations assess development policies and cooperation along with relevance, coherence, effectiveness, impact, efficiency and sustainability. Evaluations serve learning and decision-making and are essential part of accountability, openness and transparency.
Ethiopian children at school. Photo: Milma Kettunen
Guiding documents
The Foreign Ministry’s evaluation practices are based on the principles agreed internationally within the OECD and the EU. The implementation of development evaluation is steered by the Ministry's evaluation guidelines.
The Evaluation Manual introduces the concepts of development evaluation and helps to understand why and how evaluations are carried out. It also includes useful tools, model templates and guidance to support the evaluation process.
The online course of development evaluation will give you basic knowledge and understanding on evaluations in the context of development cooperation projects and programmes. It guides on the concepts and quality standards, planning and management as well as use of evaluations:
Planning evaluations well ensures that evaluation results will be available timely for decision-making and planning. Each year, the Development Evaluation Unit draws up an overall evaluation plan for the Foreign Ministry.
The results of all evaluations are thoroughly examined within the Ministry or in the groups making decisions on projects or programmes in order to determine how to implement the recommendations set out in the evaluations.
Evaluation reports are public. Large-scale evaluations of strategic relevance are presented by the evaluation experts themselves in a public event as well as in a webinar.
The use of grants is guided by standards agreed by donors in international cooperation, for example by the criteria for Official Development Assistance (ODA) eligibility defined by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC).
The discretionary government transfers are meant to support international initiatives aiming to enhance the role of evaluation in decision-making and developing evaluation capacity of evaluation functions and evaluators in the global south as well as organizations and networks that support related activities.
There are no specific deadlines for applications, and grants may be awarded throughout the year within the available appropriations.
Applications are assessed and funding is granted on the basis of how significant the project's impact is estimated to be and how suitable the activity in question is seen to be for Finland's development policy goals.
Priority is given to project support.
For more information on the discretionary government transfers, the application procedure and the general conditions for the use of transfers, please contanct the Unit for Development Evaluation, eva-11@gov.fi.
