Skilled evaluation is an essential aspect of adult education and social programming. Yet, there are few skilled evaluators available in many countries, particularly those with emerging democracies. This section suggests ways to change this unfortunate state of affairs and to use evaluation as a way of developing organisational and educational capacity.
The Responsibility of Those Commissioning Evaluations
Those commissioning evaluations should be considerate of the need to develop capacity in this regard. When education programmes have been substantially funded from or provided with technical support from the international community, there is a tendency to also commission international evaluators.
While this may result in a slightly less painful but certainly more expensive evaluation, it leaves countries continually dependent on external support. Evaluations should seek, in their conduct and choice of agents, to develop domestic organisational and personal capacity.
Evaluation is a form of enquiry that brings together organisational insights, social research, educational theory, and group skills. It enables evaluators to get very close to a programme without having had to implement it. These factors make an evaluation an ideal opportunity for learning and skills development for those who will have to conduct not only evaluations but also programmes of their own.
Those commissioning evaluations should consider the following:
- Are there existing indigenous independent institutions that could conduct the evaluation??;
- Should electoral authority develop its own evaluation capacity??, and;
- Can evaluation programmes be implemented without international leadership, if not without international participation?
Indigenous Independent Organisations
While few countries have the privilege of having organisations that specialise in educational or programme evaluation, many have social research institutes based at tertiary institutions, organisational development consultancies, or adult education centres and associations.
Because programme evaluation is an essential component of programme design, organisations that specialise in grant making may also have evaluation capacity.
In addition to the formal organisations from which an evaluator group might be drawn, there will also be individuals situated in academic institutions and civil society organisations which may have evaluation expertise.
Make Good Use of Limited Resources
If the programme is operating in an environment where such individuals or institutions have only limited experience, it may be possible to segment a larger evaluation and commission aspects of it. It may also be possible to establish a team of evaluators comprising an international and domestic component.
It can be possible to include in the terms of reference (TOR) some training and skills development responsibility, making a certain number of places on the team available to local people, making sure that there is participation in management and planning of the evaluation, and so on.
In each of these cases, the management of the evaluation is more complicated, but the developmental benefits are considerable.
Electoral Management Authorities
It is not appropriate for the election authority to entirely evaluate its own programme. It inevitably should draw in outside evaluators, even if they act primarily as facilitators of a participatory process. The election authority is likely to be involved with a broad range of educational initiatives. When it decides to strengthen civil society by outsourcing much of its work to independent organisations, its own ability to evaluate programme plans, to assess educational tenders (competitive bids), and to evaluate implemented programmes is a real advantage.
Specialised evaluators employed by an electoral management authority can not only operate in the voter education area, but can also be useful in the evaluation of training programmes conducted for election officials, party agents, and others.
For these reasons, electoral management authorities should consider building their own evaluation capacity, whether by starting with technical assistance from the international community or by deploying already qualified evaluators.
These people should participate in any programme evaluations if they are in the process of being established, and they should develop a library of evaluation studies. Because such studies are seldom published, this requires contact with other electoral authorities and educational institutions in order to obtain them.
Managing the Implementation of Evaluation Studies
Programme evaluation is an international endeavour. It is increasingly the domain of organisational development consultancies from the private sector. asAs a result, there is considerable competition for work and the costs of commissioning individuals, companies or organisations is increasing.
Countries commissioning evaluation studies of their voter and civic education programmes should have the capacity to manage the teams of evaluators that get created. They need sufficient expertise to ensure that they are able to manage any external consultants and also to develop indigenous leadership capable of establishing and leading such teams.
In order to achieve this, they should look for opportunities for their electoral staff and others to obtain international experience.
