Shared Content
Over time, evaluation has become increasingly important at Pact. An updated evaluation policy released in 2014 guides our programs in the requirements and expectations for evaluation. Module 3: Field Guide for Evaluation: How to Develop an Effective Terms of Reference, finalized in 2014 by our Results and Measurement team, provides a basic overview of evaluation concepts and gives those who commission and manage evaluations an overview of best practices for planning, implementing, and managing the overall process of an evaluation.
A slide set accompanying the module provides an opportunity to engage in practical exercises to test the skills outlined in this text.
A practical guide to managing and leading evaluation efforts, this module is designed for use in evaluations within your organization and among your partners. Increasing local capacity to conduct and manage good program evaluation is a key goal of the Results and Measurement team at Pact. The copyright under a Creative Commons agreement encourages you to use, remix, and adapt all Pact materials as you see fit, with attribution to Pact.
Each chapter’s learning objectives and exercises relate to sections of Pact’s evaluation protocol, and each chapter builds on the previous one. By the end of the module, if you have worked your way through the exercises, you should have a comprehensive, written plan for your evaluation— that is, a full terms of reference (TOR). In addition, a TOR template can be found in Appendix 1 (page 90). The shaded boxes that introduce and give an overview of each chapter refer to relevant sections of this template.
The closing pages of each chapter link you to the wealth of further resources available on the Internet. I encourage all practitioners to use these resources to keep your knowledge of evaluation up to date and growing, in order to deepen your practice and bring your increasing skills to the programs serving the communities we care about.
Data quality is a cornerstone of accountability in program reporting. In the international development sector, although we are often focused on reporting, ensuring the quality of the data that we report is critical for our partners, our donors, and our beneficiaries. In addition, Data Quality Management Plans and Routine Data Quality Assessments are both important elements of Pact’s Results and Measurement Standards. The intent of this manual is to provide guidance on how to ensure excellent data quality in all our programming. A slide set accompanying the module provides an opportunity to engage in practical exercises to test the skills outlined in this text.
Chapters 1 through 4 of this manual will provide Pact Staff with a solid understanding of how to assess data quality and how to best conduct data management for data quality. The shaded boxes at the beginning of each chapter outline the key learning concepts and the exercises at the end of each chapter will help you begin formulating aspects of your project’s Data Quality Management Plan. In the annexes you will find:
Instructions on how to use the Excel-based Routine Data Quality Assessment (RDQA) Tool—to use when conducting RDQAs of your own data and M&E systems, as well as your partners’ data and M&E systems;
A Data Quality Management (DQM) Plan template to customize to your own program.
This manual was updated and revised in 2014 to reflect field experience with routine data quality assessments and Pact’s own internal expertise in improving data quality. The updated manual was revised by Lauren Serpe, Alison Koler, Reid Porter, Rachel Beck, and Jade Lamb. Copyediting was done by Karen Cure. With the exception of a new RDQA Tool, much of the original manual’s content remains, and I would like to thank Lynn McCoy, Rita Sonko, Hannah Kamau, Jacqueline Ndirangu, Titus Syengo, and Ana Coghlan for their contributions.
