This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Clements, P. Articles by Sasaki, R. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Reducing World Poverty by Improving Evaluation of Development Aid

Western Michigan University, clements{at}wmich.edu

Thomaz Chianca

Western Michigan University

Ryoh Sasaki

Western Michigan University

This article argues that given its structural conditions, development aid bears a particularly heavy burden of learning and accountability. Unfortunately, however, the organization of evaluation guarantees that evaluations will be inconsistent and it creates incentives for positive bias. This article presents evidence from organizational studies of aid agencies, from the public choice literature, from eight development projects in Africa, and from one in India, that demonstrates positive bias and inconsistency in monitoring and evaluation. It proposes that the evaluation function should be professionalized through an approach titled "monitoring and evaluation for cost effectiveness," and it compares this approach to the World Bank's results-based monitoring and evaluation, the Development Assistance Committee's five evaluation criteria, and evaluations based on randomized trials. This article explains the analytics of the proposed approach and suggests directions for further research.

Key Words: development assistance • cost effectiveness • evaluation bias • professionalism

American Journal of Evaluation, Vol. 29, No. 2, 195-214 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1098214008318657


CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				A. P. Williams and J. C. Morris The Development of Theory-Driven Evaluation in the Military: Theory on the Front Line American Journal of Evaluation, March 1, 2009; 30(1): 62 - 79. [Abstract] [PDF]