IRC Evaluation Guidelines: Research, Evaluation and Learning

Taking this reality as a starting point, these guidelines are written to help improve the way IRC uses and learns from evaluation. They include the terms and concepts essential for improving the quality of IRC evaluations across sectors and country programs; they are not, however, a guide on how to do evaluation. In fact, one of the basic premises of IRC’s DM&E Strategy is that activities such as evaluation are an expertise. We should treat them as such and decrease the expectation that all staff must understand and do everything.

The primary audiences for these guidelines are technical and regional units and in-country senior technical and management staff. We hope that they will demystify evaluation and help us all to ask the right questions – of ourselves, but also of the consultants and donors working with us to implement and evaluate programs that truly make a difference in people’s lives.