Evaluation standards

Evaluation standards identify how the quality of an evaluation will be judged. They can be used when planning an evaluation as well as for meta-evaluation (evaluating the evaluation).

Many organizations have guidelines which address issues of quality and ethics together. For example, the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme ) Norms for Evaluation state that evaluation in UNDP should be:

• Independent — Management must not impose restrictions on the scope, content, comments and recommendations of evaluation reports. Evaluators must be free of conflict of interest.
• Intentional — The rationale for an evaluation and the decisions to be based on it should be clear from the outset.
• Transparent — Meaningful consultation with stakeholders is essential for the credibility and utility of the evaluation.
• Ethical — Evaluation should not reflect personal or sectoral interests. Evaluators must have professional integrity, respect the rights of institutions and individuals to provide information in confidence, and be sensitive to the beliefs and customs of local social and cultural environments.
• Impartial — Removing bias and maximizing objectivity are critical for the credibility of the evaluation and its contribution to knowledge.
• Of high quality — All evaluations should meet minimum quality standards defined by the Evaluation Office
• Timely — Evaluations must be designed and completed in a timely fashion so as to ensure the usefulness of the findings and recommendations
• Used — Evaluation is a management discipline that seeks to provide information to be used for evidence-based decision making. To enhance the usefulness of the findings and recommendations, key stakeholders should be engaged in various ways in the conduct of the evaluation.

Resources

Overview

This is a module taken from the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) program.

This article, "Evaluation, valuation, negotiation: some reflections towards a culture of evaluation" explores the issues of developing standards for an evaluation, when these have not previously been agreed, in a rural development program in Argentina.

Examples

ANZEA (Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association) has worked in partnership with SuPERU to develop a set of Aotearoa-specific Evaluation Standards that set out the expectations of the evaluation process, practices and products.

The updated 2016 UNEG Norms and Standards for Evaluation, a UNEG foundational document, is intended for application for all United Nations’ evaluations.

The evaluation standards for Latin America and the Caribbean were developed by a working group of the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Monitoring, Evaluation and Systematization (ReLAC), with support from DEval’s evaluation capacity development

These updated design, monitoring and evaluation standards from the Australian Government aim to "improve the quality and use of Design and M&E products, and to integrate evaluative thinking into everyday work".

Developed through a process of drafting, trialling and reviewing by members of the OECD DAC Network on Development Evaluation, the document sets out standards in terms of: overarching considerations; purpose, planning and design; implementation and reporting; and follow-up, use and learning.

This resource from the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation provides statements that describe each of the standards developed to support program evaluation.

This paper from the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) provides a brief description of the guidelines and a series of checklists to assist with the planning, implementation and completion of the evaluation process.

This set of standards was developed by the Uganda Evaluation Association (UEA) in order to guide evaluations that take place in Uganda to ensure a good standard of practice is demonstrated by evaluators during evaluations.

This guide, from the South African Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation, outlines the standards by which government evaluations should take place.