InterAction’s MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS: December 2007

Program Evaluation Standards: Raising the Accountability Bar

By Juan Carlos Alegre, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Save the Children Federation, Inc.

There is an increasing demand for greater accountability in foreign assistance, and international
non-governmental organizations (INGOs), along with other players in the provision of foreign
aid, are pressed to provide credible evidence demonstrating achievement of program results.
As part of InterAction’s effort to help its member organizations increase their accountability to
a variety of stakeholders including program participants, partners and donors, InterAction's
Evaluation and Program Effectiveness Working Group (EPEWG) recently submitted evaluation
standards to InterAction’s Standards Committee. These standards are now part of both the
Self-Certification Plus (SCP) process and InterAction's Recommended Standards and Guidelines.
(See Barbara Wallace's article on this broader topic also in this issue.) The standards are
intended for all InterAction member organizations regardless of their scope and size of
operations.

The revised evaluation standards, recently approved by InterAction’s board of directors for
incorporation into the SCP process, are defined as follows:

1. The organization incorporates relevant monitoring and evaluation practices in its policy, systems
and culture. This standard aims to assess design, monitoring and evaluation standards and
policies that are in place for programs and projects. It also seeks to ensure adherence to
professional principles and standards to foster program effectiveness.

2. The organization conducts regular and deliberate evaluative activities to examine progress
toward its goals and mission. Regardless of the size and scope of operations, the member
organization will show how it regularly assesses whether or not it is on the right track
for achieving its intended goals and overall mission.

3. The organization applies adequate financial and human resources for monitoring and
evaluation. This standard aims to ensure that the member organization not only allocates
sufficient resources for program monitoring and evaluation activities, but also uses those
resources as planned/intended.

These new SCP process evaluation standards emerge from three years of work that began
when InterAction’s Board of Directors created the EPEWG to survey members’ evaluation
capacities, support members’ needs for effectively using systematic evaluative strategies and
practices, and create standards by which organizations can assess their work. Drawing upon
InterAction member organizations’ diverse experience base in order to achieve broad
relevance for the community, the EPEWG produced the “Position Statement on Demonstrating
NGO Effectiveness,” which the InterAction board of directors approved on September 20,
2005. It is this position statement that provided the foundation for the SCP’s revised program
evaluation standards.

With the new SCP process evaluation standards now approved, the EPEWG will provide
further guidelines to clarify and illustrate the revised standards. Additionally, to help InterAction
member organizations respond to these new standards, the working group will prepare

Page 1 of 2
InterAction’s MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS: December 2007

presentations on major topics related to demonstrating effectiveness and will compile a list of
resources for program effectiveness and accountability. The EPEWG will also issue
recommended program evaluation standards to complement the revised SCP standards. All will
be available on InterAction’s website.

This effort revises InterAction’s evaluation standards and develops and highlights resources that
can help InterAction members comply with those standards. In so doing, it responds to the one
of the EPEWG’s two objectives, namely, to build the capacity of InterAction and its members to
demonstrate effectiveness by: (a) serving as a practical resource for InterAction members and
InterAction itself in monitoring, evaluation, and program effectiveness; and (b) acting as a
platform and an think tank in which InterAction and its members can develop new, creative
ideas for evaluation and program effectiveness. The EPEWG’s second objective complements
the first: to inform communications and advocacy initiatives to influence the U.S. and global aid
effectiveness discourse.

As the EPEWG begins taking on bigger tasks related to these two objectives, it is eager to
expand its membership to ensure that it represents the full range of InterAction members,
drawing on InterAction members’ breadth of knowledge and experience and effectively
responding to InterAction members’ needs related to evaluation and program effectiveness. To
join the EPEWG, please contact Hilary Nalven at HNalven@interaction.org.

---

Page 2 of 2