This section of the GUIDE has introduced some of the main issues for the evaluation of socio-economic development. Embedded in the various topics discussed, about the benefits of evaluation, about the nature of the evaluation task and the specific requirements of the socio-economic policy, are various hard-won good practice rules that experience has shown can help with the planning, undertaking and use of evaluation. By way of summary, these golden rules have been pulled together below:
- Remember that we evaluate in order to improve programmes not to undertake evaluations for their own sake. Always ask when planning an evaluation: how will the results improve the lives of citizens, the prosperity and well-being of regions and the competitiveness of economic actors. If you cannot find a positive answer to these questions, maybe you should look again at the need for an evaluation, at the very least, at the way it has been designed.
- Aligning the time cycles of evaluations with the time cycles of programmes and policies is a worthy goal! This is the way to ensure evaluations make their maximum contribution. It is better to deliver an incomplete or imperfect evaluation on time than to achieve a 10% improvement in evaluation quality and miss the window of opportunity, when policy makers and programme managers can use evaluation results.
- Different stakeholders e.g., policymakers, professionals, managers and citizens, have different expectations of evaluation. If a major stakeholder interest is ignored, this is likely to weaken an evaluation, either because it will be poorly designed or because its results will lack credibility. Involving policy makers and those responsible for programmes will ensure they take results seriously. Identify your stakeholders, find out what their interests are in an evaluation and involve them!
- Evaluations must be fully integrated into programme planning and management. Programme managers need to think of evaluation as a resource: a source of feedback, a tool for improving performance, an early warning of problems (and solutions) and a way of systematizing knowledge. Evaluation is not simply an external imposition. Of course, this truism has implications for evaluators, who need to take on board the concerns of programme managers (and their partnerships) and try to take seriously their need for answers to difficult questions.
- Getting good work from the diverse groups which make up the contemporary evaluation professional community needs bridge building and team building. Bridges need to be built at national, regional and European levels between the different traditions among evaluators, social scientists, economists, policy analysts and management consultants. So hold conferences and support professional exchange to ensure the diffusion of knowledge and know-how. This is one way of building capacity. At a micro-level, the priority is integration and the combination of different skills and competences within evaluation teams.
- Evaluation is not only about looking back to rate success or failure and allocate blame. It has a contribution to make at every stage in the programme cycle. In particular, evaluation can at the earliest stage, strengthen programmes by helping to unpick intervention logics and reveal weaknesses in programme design allowing remedial action to be taken early.
- It is no longer acceptable to gather large quantities of data in the belief that these will eventually provide answers to all evaluation questions. Data dredging is nearly always inefficient. This does not mean that data systems are not essential: they must be put in place at an early stage (see the section of the GUIDE on choosing methods and techniques). However, by being clear about assumptions, by drawing on available theory and being clear about the type of evaluation that is needed, evaluations can be more focused and offer a higher yield for the resources expended.
- The policy context is an important framework within which evaluations need to be located. Of course, policy changes, or is restated in different terms and with subtly changing priorities. However, it is always necessary to keep one eye on the policy debates and decisions in order to ensure that evaluations are sensitized to policy priorities.
- Although we have argued that all stakeholders are important (see 3 above), the emphasis on socio-economic development gives particular prominence to one important and often neglected group: the intended beneficiaries of the programme interventions. Incorporating the voice of these intended beneficiaries - local communities, marginalised groups and new economic entities - in evaluations implies more than asking their opinions. It also implies incorporating their criteria and judgements into an evaluation and accepting that their experience and benefits are the justification for programme interventions. This is consistent with the logic of bottom-up, participative and decentralised approaches that are common now in socio-economic development. It is also why responsive and participatory methods have become such an important part of the evaluators toolkit.
- Be pragmatic! We live in an imperfect world where resources are limited, administrators are not always efficient, co-ordination is imperfect, knowledge is patchy and data are often not available. It is nonetheless worth taking small steps, working with what is available and increasing, even marginally, the efficiency and legitimacy of public programmes. Even modest outputs can make a big difference especially when this is set within a longer-term vision to build capacity and allow for more ambitious evaluations in the future.