Page 93 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

organizational learning, relevance, and efficiency may be appropriate, moving later in the
implementation period to issues like sustainability and impact.

External Strategic Evaluation

There will no doubt also be a need for the conduct of more formal, donor-funded
evaluations that may be tied to investments in certain activities. These should be
developed collaboratively between the AERC and donors. Where possible the AERC
should seek to amalgamate the evaluation requirements of donors to reduce the burden
on partners and stakeholders. This could include the conduct of one midterm review of
the AERC and one review at the end of the current strategic plan period.

The AERC should work with the funders of the Consortium to design a utilisation-focused
approach to evaluation. Evaluations are ultimately judged by their utility, i.e. their actual
use by ‘real people in the real world’. While independent evaluations play an important
role in ensuring accountability and assessing performance, it is the salience and utility
of their recommendations that are the hallmarks of a high-quality evaluation. Several
fundamental premises underlie utilization-focused evaluations; these include but are not
limited to:

» A commitment to use by intended users and a focus on this throughout the
course of the evaluation;

» Careful and thoughtful stakeholder analysis and engagement;
» The customization of evaluation designs based on situational issues; and

» High-quality participation. 9

As noted by Michael Patton, utilization-focused evaluations should be designed
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situationally. There is no one ‘right’ approach. Evaluations should be designed to meet
the needs of the primary intended users and the organization at a particular period.
The AERC should do what it can to ensure that any external evaluations commissioned
by Consortium funders are in accordance with the principles outlined above, as this
will ensure that they produce relevant and useful findings that inform performance
improvement and organizational learning, while also meeting donor requirements.

Implementing Activity-Level Evaluation

As outlined in the MEF (Table A4) activity-level evaluation involves assessment of the
performance of activities against OECD-DAC evaluation criteria, in addition to the activity
assessment discussed above. This may be a requirement of donors, tied to specific funding
agreements. In most cases this assessment will be conducted by external consultants at

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