Translating Project Achievements into Strategic Plans: A Case Study in Utilization-Focused Evaluation

Abstract

Background: Utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) is a decision-making framework intended to design and implement evaluations that get utilized. In this case study, the UFE approach was applied to the evaluation of a youth training and employment program in Kenya.
 Purpose: Analyze a case study based on empirical experience with the lens of evaluation use and influence.
 Setting: Nairobi and other urban and peri-urban settings, Kenya.
 Intervention: The evaluation of a youth training and employment program that provided direct training for marginalized youth as well as capacity building for employment and adapted a Basic Employability Skills Training (BEST) model from India.
 Research design: Analysis of a case study to describe: how the evaluation approach provided enabling factors for funders and grantees to turn evaluation into a learning intervention; the benefit of clarifying a project’s theory of change; and learning how to combine summative and developmental evaluation.
 Data collection and analysis: A case study based on an evaluation consultancy. The evaluation included site visits, extensive documentation review, qualitative and quantitative data collection.
 Findings: The ‘facilitation of use’ (a step in UFE) provided a bridge between a summative and a developmental evaluation. The evaluators and program partners developed a learning relationship wherein the evidence influenced the subsequent project design and strategy. 
 Keywords: Evaluation as learning, utilization-focused evaluation, theory of change, summative and developmental evaluation, technical vocational education and training – TVET, Kenya, youth livelihoods