INTRODUCTION

Pupose
The primary purpose of the Evaluation Guidelines is to communicate to partners and external consultants Danida’s expectations of the quality of 7 Purpose evaluations carried out on its behalf.

Quality
Because quality touches on different aspects of the evaluative enterprise such as use, methodology and management, the guidelines explain Danida’s approach to evaluation of development interventions and identify those attributes it considers important to quality.

The Evaluation Guidelines apply to evaluation activities financed fully or partly by Danida: they constitute a framework for achieving quality that is built on principles, criteria, standards, good practices and information about Danida’s evaluation process.

External consultants
The guidelines are not intended as an evaluation manual. Danida requires that its external consultants have the competencies expected of evaluation professionals: a sound grasp of evaluation methodologies, the skills and abilities to carry out evaluations as well as up to date knowledge of developments in the field of evaluation, in particular development evaluation.

As such, the guidelines incorporate concepts, methods, tools and issues basic to professional evaluation practice without discussing them at length; in some cases they provide a reference to more information. Interested parties The guidelines are also intended as a source of information on Danida’s evaluation practice for partner countries, colleagues outside of the Evaluation Department (EVAL), staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of the government of Denmark in general, Danida’s technical assistance personnel in the field, bilateral and multilateral assistance organisations, and the broader evaluation community.

Contents
The guidelines are presented in five chapters.

Chapter 1 provides key definitions and distinctions used by Danida in its evaluation activities, identifies main parties to the evaluation process and discusses joint evaluation in Danish development assistance.

A discussion of differences and similarities in evaluating different types and aspects of development cooperation is included in Chapter 2.

Chapter 3 presents the steps and procedures taken by the Evaluation Department to prepare the evaluation, oversee its implementation and disseminate its results.

The evaluation criteria that serve as a basis for developing evaluative questions are presented and discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 addresses the implementation of the evaluation by the external evaluator.