Concept paper for ongoing SABEQ support to local economic development in Jordan : final report

and with their possible relevance to Latin American evaluation practices. We shall concern ourselves for the most part with empirical summative evaluations. These require the collection of observations within some kind of a planned experimental or quasi-experimental design framework in order to summarize the extent to which an intervention has reached its goals, met the claims publicly made for it, or has led to unexpected effects. Summative evaluations are often distinguished from formative evaluations, the latter being attempts by project personnel to develop diagnostic feedback about the project"s functioning in order to make changes in how the project is administered. Summative and formative evaluations differ in: (1) purpose (summarizing a project"s impact versus suggesting changes in some parts of it); (2) scope (summative evaluations involve a greater concern for generalizability and the quality of causal inferences); and (3) origin (most formative research is conducted by in-house staff as opposed to outside evaluators). Though our major emphasis will be on surnmative work, we shall briefly discuss the conditions under formative research is desirable and the utility and feasibility of having summative evaluations done by outsiders rather than project personnel. (Author abstract)