Implementing Developmental Evaluation: A Practical Guide for Funders (2019)

Increased interest in complexity-aware and utilization focused evaluation has given Developmental Evaluation (DE) greater currency among evaluators, donors, and implementing partners alike. Although DE has gained traction over the past few years in the evaluation community, and gained interest within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), there are still few cases of use and a small practitioner base that is able to speak to operationalizing this type of evaluation. Likewise, there is little practical guidance available to help stakeholders interact with DE for the first time.
We geared this “Funders Guide” toward people responsible for commissioning a DE. We draw from our experience implementing DEs for USAID, and from other contexts that may provide relevant learning to DEs within USAID. We also believe that many aspects of the learning shared here may be applicable to DEs outside the USAID context, but may require some adaptation. We organized the Guide into the following Modules: