International Policy Advising (IPA)

Case Studies - Evaluation

Home

Capacity building for poverty and social impact analysis

Since its creation in 1989, IPA Cologne has contributed to a large number of project and programme evaluations worldwide. In most cases, the evaluation teams were composed of both national and international evaluators. Often, however, especially in poor and fragile countries, the national expertise available for evaluation purposes was weak or lacking.

Evaluations that focus on poverty and social impacts face some daunting challenges. For one, many development projects and programmes deal only indirectly with poverty and social change. They may aim, for example, to improve the institutional and legal framework for job creation. Ultimately, jobs may be created for both poor and non-poor individuals, with longer term benefits accruing to many other individuals and groups.

Another major challenge to evaluations that focus on poverty and social impacts is difficult access to poor and marginalized groups. Many such groups live in geographically isolated areas. Access may also be inhibited due to linguistic barriers, cultural constraints and other factors.

IPA Cologne has developed and applied a capacity development programme for poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA) comprising 10 training modules. It was developed and applied in 2008 and 2014 in close cooperation with the Observatory of Social Change (Observatoire de Changement Social, OCS) in Cotonou, Benin.

Helping evaluators to help themselves has been the aim of IPA Cologne's commitment to supporting Guinea's association of evaluation professionals, AGEVAL (Association Guinéenne des Evaluateurs).