Use of Evaluations in the Norwegian Development Cooperation System

This evaluation report was commissioned by the Norad Evaluation Department

in order to respond to the need for understanding whether and how the

evaluations it conducts are used, and how the systems for learning from and

using those evaluations can be improved.

Evaluation use is important because, unlike basic research, evaluation is

intended to provide accountability for achieving results from the use of funding,

and learning from experience in ways that can be put to practical use. The

extensive literature on evaluation use suggests that evaluation can affect policy

and operational decisions. Much attention focuses on the explicit use of

evaluation through the implementation of recommendations. While this is an

important kind of evaluation use, this study highlights a number of ways in which

evaluations can have more indirect influence on actions, perceptions, and even

how specific issues are conceptualized.

In conducting this evaluation the team used a mixed-methods approach. This

entailed document reviews, interviews with key informants, case studies of four

specific evaluations, detailed review of the content and structure of related

evaluation reports, a citation search for Norad evaluations, and a comparative

organizational analysis of evaluation units in Norad peer organizations.