Evaluate Together

STEP 1: Determine who wants to learn from the evaluation.

In determining who wants to learn from the evaluation, you should consider the many stakeholders who have been involved or have a direct interest in the project. The core group should continue to be the primary participants and should have a strong voice in the evaluation process. Other interested parties—such as the broader community, the various levels of the health system, people from the municipal/district/regional/national governments, the project team, and donors—should also be invited to participate.

There may also be people and organizations that have not been directly involved in the process but who have an interest in learning from it. Additionally, you may want to invite potential future partners to participate, to provide an external perspective and to further their understanding of the approach used and its results.

(See Phase 7, Prepare to Scale Up.)

PHILLIPINES: How Many is Too Many? In Iloilo, Save the Children/Philippines grappled with how to balance participation in the evaluation of the many actors involved in the Appreciative Community Mobilization project with practical concerns for coordination and logistics. The project was working in 16 pilot communities: 8 urban and 8 rural. Participants in the project came not only from the community, but also from the local government at the municipal level in the city or province. To ensure that all communities had some representation, the team decided on the following evaluation team composition: Local Government Unit health staff: 2 Local Government Unit public officials: 2 Barangay (community): 2-3 including Barangay Health Worker and Captain or Council member(s) Sitio (neighborhood): 2 sitio representatives (verify #'s) SC/Philippines team: 1 for provincial sites, 1 for rural sites The team decided that community members from one community would evaluate the progress of another community, so that they could learn from each other and at the same time strengthen ties between participating communities.

It helps to make a list of as many of these individuals and organizations as you can think of; try to be as inclusive in your thinking as possible. Find out if these people/groups are interested in participating in the evaluation in any way. Remember that they need not be physically present to do this but can contribute questions or thoughts on areas that they are interested in learning about. Make sure you do not promise to incorporate all the questions of all the parties into the evaluation, as there will be limits on time and resources, but try to address their concerns in some way.