What can evaluation bring to an organization, whether national or international, local or multinational, governmental or not, public or private, business or institution, formal or informal?

It provides answers to the three following questions :

■Accountability for the use of resources (human, financial, technical, etc.): Is the intervention relevant, effective and consistent?

■Generate knowledge to meet the information needs on the development intervention (program, strategy, public policy): What can we learn from evaluation? How can we apply this knowledge to other contexts?

■Learning from experience by examining what works and what does not (and why): Did the intervention work or not, and why? How could we act differently to get better results?

What they said about evaluation ...

■" … rigorous and independent assessment of either completed or ongoing activities to determine the extent to which they are achieving stated objectives and contributing to decision-making."
Handbook on planning, monitoring and evaluation for development results, UNDP, 2009.

■"Evaluation is an assessment, as systematic and impartial as possible, of an activity, project, program, strategy, policy, topic, theme, sector, operational area, institutional performance, etc"
United Nations Evaluation Group, 2005.

■"The systematic and objective assessment of an on-going or completed project, programme or policy, its design, implementation and results."

Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management. OECD / DAC, 2006.

■"Evaluation: (i) performs a function of knowledge on public action; (ii) allows especially decision-makers and citizens to have a more accurate assessment of their value; (iii) provides officials with useful information for decision-making."
Guide to Evaluation, General Directorate of International Cooperation and Development, 2005.