Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

External support is sought to:

a) Establish conceptual clarity and guidance on the practical implementation of evaluability assessments;

b) Support the first application of an evaluability assessment, namely the EA of the Austrian Climate Finance Strategy through peer review.

Expected results

The assignment aims at:

- Strengthening conceptual clarity and provision of guidance on practical implementation of evaluability assessments within ADC and potentially beyond through targeting other Austrian actors in official development assistance.

- Supporting the practical incorporation of evaluability assessments and the quality assurance through the peer review of the evaluability assessment of the Austrian Climate Finance Strategy.

Target group / Beneficiaries

The target group of this assignment is a) ADA's Evaluation Unit (3 people); other Evaluation professionals of the Austrian development cooperation (3-4 people) c) the Evaluation Team who are conducting the Evaluability Assessment (2-3 people).

Activities

Activities under Component 1) A workshop will be organized jointly with ADA evaluation staff and evaluation professionals of the Austrian development cooperation with the aim of establishing i) conceptual clarity on evaluability assessments and its application within Austrian development cooperation and ii) a joint understanding on the effective incorporation of evaluability assessments in evaluation work of the Austrian development cooperation. Based on the learnings and agreements from the workshop, a new module under the Evaluation Policy (2019) will be developed.

Activities under Component 2) to ensure quality application of the first evaluability assessment as per ADC strategic evaluation plan 2021/2022, the evaluability assessment of the Austrian Climate Finance Strategy will be supported through peer review. The task will encompass the commenting of relevant reports of the said evaluability assessment.

Context

An evaluability assessment (EA) examines the extent to which it is possible to evaluate an intervention in principle. Further it assesses whether an evaluation is possible in practice, i.e.: whether relevant data is available and to what extent systems are able to provide said data. An evaluability assessment should additionally provide information on the potential benefits and practical feasibility of an evaluation.

In addition, an evaluability assessment can also contribute significantly to sharpening the design and implementation of the evaluation object itself.

The Evaluation Policy of the Austrian development cooperation (2019) underlines the particular importance of evaluability assessments. The development of second technical module under the umbrella of the Evaluation Policy on Evaluability Assessments is foreseen.

The ADC strategic evaluation plan 2021/2022 foresees the implementation of one evaluability assessment.

Peer Review is an internationally established tool in development cooperation to ensure quality and enhance learning. Other bilateral development cooperation actors integrate elements of peer review into their strategic and programmatic evaluations.