Non-govermental organisations self-evaluation: Issue of concern in Nigeria

Abstract

Non-Governmental organizations (NGOs) promote alternative development strategies to those provided by the government. The economic recession being witnessed in developing countries like Nigeria and the poor performance of many government development programmes have made NGOs more relevant than ever. NGOs play an increasingly important role in rural development in particular and societal development in general, for which extension education is one of their policy instruments. This paper addresses the issue of self-evaluation among non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The impact of NGOs' interventions shows that there is change in living standards, income generation access to infrastructures and also change in literacy levels. This may have either a positive or negative effect upon the lives of the beneficiaries. In general, self-evaluation is seen to be a non-priority area for three reasons: there is little performance pressure on NGOs, the perspectives available for evaluation do not match the context in which NGOs function and the existing methodologies for evaluation are not appropriate for the evaluation process to become institutionalized within the NGOs. The paper discusses each of these in turn and proposes action to be taken by the NGOs and by those with whom they work, especially the poor donor agencies, etc.. The recommendation, if adopted, should encourage NGOs to engage in more systematic evaluation of their own programmes and, thus, improve their impact and efficiency.