Monitoring
& Evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation processes can be managed by the donors financing the assessed activities, by an independent branch of the implementing organization, by the project managers or implementing team themselves and/or by a private company. The credibility and objectivity of monitoring and evaluation reports depend very much on the independence of the evaluators. Their expertise and independence is of major importance for the process to be successful.

The M&E is separated into two distinguished categories: evaluation and monitoring. An evaluation is a systematic and objective examination concerning the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and impact of activities in the light of specified objectives. The idea in evaluating projects is to isolate errors in order to avoid repeating them and to underline and promote the successful mechanisms for current and future projects.

As a platform for evaluation learning and co-ordination, the DAC Network on Development Evaluation develops shared norms and standards and, with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in mind, contributes to efforts to build capacity among developing countries to perform and collaborate in evaluations. It also facilitates their members' efforts towards joint work by encouraging them to share and co-ordinate their plans for future evaluations.

Based on the OECD DAC's 50 years of experience in international development, we have developed a normative framework for evaluating the results and effectiveness of development policies and programs. A framework that has since gained broad international consensus consists of quality standards, general principles and advice on specific types of evaluation.

The OECD DAC has defined six evaluation criteria – relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability – and two principles for their use.

These criteria provide a normative framework used to determine the merit or worth of an intervention (policy, strategy, program, project or activity). They serve as the basis upon which evaluative judgments are made. It is important that the definitions of the criteria are understood within a broader context, and read in conjunction with other principles and guidance on how to conduct evaluations in ways that will be useful and of high quality:

• The criteria should be applied thoughtfully to support high quality, useful evaluation.
• The use of the criteria depends on the purpose of the evaluation. The criteria should not be applied mechanistically