Synthesis of AID evaluation reports : FY 1987 to FY 1988

Missions and offices during FY's 1987-88. The review addressed two main areas: compliance with the A.I.D. Handbook, and the quality of the evaluations. The main findings were as follows: (1) 89% of the reports evaluated single projects, 10% evaluated more than one project, and 1% evaluated nonproject assistance; (2) on certain key measures (e.g., completeness, methodology), evaluations prepared for the Asia/Near East and Latin America/Caribbean Bureaus rated best; (3) 53% were conducted solely by contractors, while A.I.D. and host country personnel participated in 29% and 27% of the evaluations, respectively; (4) 69% were interim evaluations; (5) in terms of primary focus, 64% addressed outputs, 28% addressed purpose, and 2% addressed goals; (6) complete data were available on outputs in 51% of the evaluations, on purposes in 19%, and on goals in 4%; (7) possibly because of the short time taken to conduct the evaluations (on average about a month), data collection relied heavily on key informant interviews and to a lesser extent on site visits, with little or no use made of focus group or community interviews, formal or informal surveys, or direct observation; (8) in regard to analytical methods, 50% analyzed trend data, 23% analyzed cost-effectiveness in detail, and 11% used comparison or control groups; (9) 60% contained information on financial monitoring and 79% on program monitoring, with 66% of the projects evaluated given high marks for financial monitoring and 54% given high marks for program monitoring; (10) 59% of the reports called for improvements in the project monitoring, evaluation, or management information systems; (11) two-thirds of the reports included the required ES or PES containing a section for listing actions to be taken on the basis of the evaluation; (12) on average, less than half of the recommendations could be acted upon by the A.I.D. Mission or Bureau which sponsored the evaluation, the rest being directed to those actually implementing the project; (13) 18% of the evaluations noted that recommendations from prior evaluations had not been implemented; (14) in terms of special concerns, detailed discussion was given to WID issues in 9% of the evaluations, to environmental issues in 8%, and to sustainability issues in 36%; (15) cost data, which were provided for 45% of the evaluations, indicate a mean cost per evaluation of $37,450, with 17% costing less than $10,000 and 20% costing over $60,000.