Reviews and evaluations are an essential part of managing a project: they tell us what works and what doesn't, so we can continuously improve projects and build on our successes.
Reviews and evaluations — the difference
A review is an assessment of a project (or a component) while it's being implemented. It's useful at any stage to give a snapshot of performance at a point in time (typically mid-term) and check the project is on track. Reviews are usually less formal than evaluations and often aren't published. A review across a portfolio of projects is often used to inform a new phase, or the design of new projects.
An evaluation assesses a project over its duration and after it has ended — whether it made the difference it was intended to make. Evaluations are independent, more formal than reviews, and often published.
Why organisations ask us
Future Partners reviews and evaluates projects for organisations that want to:
- improve their current projects
- understand what they can learn to improve their future work
- demonstrate their projects are successful, to support applications for more funding
- show stakeholders their projects are making progress
- make decisions about future investments, or another phase of a project
- assess the difference their projects have made to the lives of people and communities
When we review or evaluate, we use international best practice and the evaluation criteria set out by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). We assemble a team that includes a MERL (monitoring, evaluation, results and learning) expert, one or more subject-matter experts, and an in-country consultant who knows the local context, stakeholders and issues. It takes time to build the trust that lets people talk to strangers about their experience of a development project — so we take time to listen and make people feel valued. We are caring, authentic and professional.
What our review and evaluation service involves
- using OECD DAC criteria and principles to assess the merit or worth of an activity, policy, strategy or programme
- identifying the right methodology (such as UFE, participatory or developmental) for the type of review or evaluation required (for example, process or impact)
- staying robust and independent, and providing clear information about what works, what doesn't, and why
- ensuring findings, recommendations and learnings are usable — to improve the effectiveness of aid investments and help donors, implementing partners and partner-country governments with policy and planning (for strategic evaluations, it helps to have a consultant with experience as a senior government official or minister)
Audits
In addition to reviews and evaluations, audits can validate reports — typically of finances, management systems or assets. International finance institutions such as the World Bank use audits to analyse a project's procedures, processes and financial reports against the funder's requirements, and to assess its actual progress against plan.