Evaluating Capacity Development: What do We Really want to Know?

Abstract

Capacity development is core to the activities supported by most development assistance agencies. However, the development of capacity is rarely evaluated. Where it is evaluated, the quality of evaluations is usually poor. Furthermore, evaluations of capacity development programs have rarely met the utility standard. In particular, they seldom provide the types of information that intended users need. Consequently, where evaluations have been undertaken, it is difficult to identify the influence these have made on program implementation or capacity development policy. Patton (2002) suggests that for evaluations to be utilised, they need to answer questions that are of interest to intended users. Consequently, this article attempts to identify the types of questions intended users of evaluations of donor-funded capacity development programs want addressed. The article outlines the first stage of broader research that investigates a framework for evaluating capacity development initiatives. The research aimed to identify questions that intended users would want answered by an evaluation of capacity development. Findings presented in this article result from an analysis of 54 interviews held with a range of intended user groups. These groups include: donors (those responsible for the program, senior managers and internal evaluation specialists); those in the partner agency (partner government executive, counterparts 1 and managers); those working directly on the program (managers and advisers/consultants); and evaluators. This research found that there was one particular question each user group wanted evaluations of capacity development to answer. Beyond this, the broad questions user groups wanted answered and the focus of these varied. Finally, there appeared to be little relationship between questions users wanted answered and those generally used for capacity development evaluations, which are based on the criteria established by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC 1991).