Meta-Evaluation of Centralised Development Evaluations

Description What is done in the programme or project and why, what results are pursued, who benefits from the activities and who are involved in the implementation.

Development Evaluation (EVA-11) has had a strategic attempt to develop the evaluation process, quality of products and the management of evaluation results in MFA. Thus, the meta-analysis of wider evaluations is an excellent means to show possible changes in the quality of evaluations and in the use and usefulness of their results. It is important that lessons from the past experience are assessed and utilized in the administration of development cooperation and evaluations, strategic planning of the implementation of Finnish aid and in the compilation of the development policies and guidelines. The evaluation of Results-based approach in Finnish Development Cooperation 2011:2 (RBA) recommended e.g. that comparative analysis through the medium of thematic and meta-analysis evaluations should continue, and greater attention should be given to analysing trends of performance. The management response did agree to continue with thematic and meta-analysis evaluations especially the way that it would find and show the level of performance and development trends. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to improve the quality of evaluations and terms of reference (TORs), and to examine the quality of development cooperation assessed by the evaluations. The overall purpose is to draw lessons for the benefit of development cooperation practices, and to widen the scope of use of evaluation results in the institutional learning. The specific objectives of the meta-analysis are 1) to build a comprehensive overall independent analysis of the quality of representative sample of centralized evaluation reports and their TORs from 2004 to 2012 assessed against OECD/DAC and EU Quality standards; 2) to assess the quality of Finnish development cooperation and its results as reflected against the contemporary development policies; 3) to analyse whether the strategic development processes undertaken in the last six years on development evaluation, evaluation reports and their TORs are in any way reflected in discernible trends; and 4) to assess the timing of the themes and the availability of evaluation results to be able to benefit development cooperation and policy, but also to analyse on how the results have been implemented. This Meta-Analysis will assess and collate information contained in the 24 evaluation reports from 2004-2012 and analyse evaluation funcion of the Ministry in general.