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Concept Note | Updating ALNAP's guidance on evaluating humanitarian action using the OECD DAC criteria

Countries
World
Sources
ALNAP
Publication date
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Background

The OECD DAC evaluation criteria, first published in 1991, provide a normative framework for evaluation and were designed to help promote collaboration in evaluation practice, by offering a common approach to help frame evaluation questions. They have formed the backbone of evaluation design, thinking and conceptualisation. While other organisations and networks have made additions and modifications to the original five OECD DAC criteria, 30 years later they remain the most cited and widely applied set of evaluation frames through which evaluation theory and practice is taught, managed and applied.

In 2006, ALNAP published a guidance document on using the OECD DAC evaluation criteria in humanitarian settings, Evaluating humanitarian action using the OECD DAC criteria. The guidance was designed to help evaluation professionals better understand and use the OECD DAC criteria in humanitarian settings. It also recognised that additional criteria (connectedness, coherence and coverage) were needed in these settings.
Moreover, the guidance explicitly acknowledged that the DAC criteria were often used mechanistically, and that humanitarian actors need a specific guidance document on good practice in applying these criteria in the field. The guidance focused on offering practical examples of how humanitarian practitioners have used the criteria, using real-world cases of how they have been applied. The guidance, which humanitarian evaluators ‘road tested’ or piloted before publication, helped consolidate ALNAP’s role in defining and promoting highquality evaluation practice and learning in the humanitarian sector and providing evaluation reference material designed for the sector. It has remained popular since publication and continues to be frequently downloaded.