The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Volume XIII, Number 1&2, Spring 2007
Issue Topic: Advocacy and Policy Change
Ask the Expert
Evaluation and InterAction
Ken Giunta and Todd Shelton of InterAction answer HFRP's questions about their approaches and ideas on evaluating advocacy.
Tell us about InterAction and its advocacy work.
InterAction is an alliance of U.S.-based international development and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). We work to overcome poverty, exclusion, and suffering worldwide. Our 160 members provide relief to those affected by disaster and war, assist refugees, advance human rights, support gender equality, protect the environment, address population concerns, and press for more equitable, just, and effective public policies.
Advocacy is a big part of what we do. The premise behind InterAction is that our collective voice is stronger than our individual voices. Our members deliver about $5 billion in development assistance every year, and their collective presence often gives us a seat at the policy table. We don't always win our policy battles, but we're a respected source of information about our sector.
You're an alliance of organizations. Does this raise unique evaluation needs?
As a large alliance, our evaluation needs exist at the sector level. We need to tell the story of our collective impact, but we're challenged by how to do that. Although we know that, in some ways, the world is a better place than it was 30 years ago—for example, infant mortality is down, and literacy rates are up—some people are skeptical or unaware of the development and humanitarian sector's role in bringing about these changes. To address this, we're trying to get better at evaluation and are collecting more stories about our members' successes in order to strengthen our advocacy and share what we're learning about effective relief and development policies and practice.
With storytelling, we have to ask ourselves: What kinds of stories are most effective in changing policies? Do we need to tell stories of systemic change that demonstrate broad impact over time and at a country or regional level? And how do you substantiate claims at that level—showing, for example, that our work impacted a country's Ministry of Education, which, in turn, led to major education reforms that had far-reaching results? Systemic changes have happened; we're just not sharing them effectively with each other, with the public, and with policymakers.
Also, at the sector level, some feel that the international development and humanitarian sector is too self-serving or predictable in its advocacy. InterAction has been sensitive to that and has tried to balance the positions we take, and we're curious about our sector's progress in countering that perception.
InterAction Evaluation PrinciplesEach InterAction member will: 1. Articulate its own criteria for success in bringing about meaningful changes in people's lives, both in terms of its mission and in terms of major program goals. 2. Regularly evaluate its progress towards such success. 3. Mainstream relevant monitoring and evaluation in agency policy, systems and culture. 4. Allocate adequate financial and human resources for its strategic evaluation needs. 5. Collaborate with partners and stakeholders in developing mutually satisfying goals, methods, and indicators for project and program activities. |
InterAction is standards based. How are you using member standards to promote evaluation?
We believe in integrating sound evaluation throughout our organizations. At the same time, we support strategic evaluation, which means selectively allocating scarce resources to evaluating high-priority activities at appropriate times. One way we can promote this approach network-wide is through our standards.
Fifteen years ago, our members developed standards in the areas of governance, finance, communications with the U.S. public, management practice, human resources, and program and public policy. NGOs must comply with these standards to become and remain members. More recently, our members developed a Position Statement on Demonstrating NGO Effectiveness that includes evaluation principles (see text box). Now we're building those principles into our new member standards.
Members will need support to meet these evaluation standards. How will you do that?
Our working group on monitoring and program effectiveness is looking at the ways in which the alliance and individual members can assess im-pact, including the impact of advocacy. We're also trying to become a community of practice. The working group is asking members in different areas to share how they measure their impact. Our goal is to become a repository of evaluation ideas and measures so that our members can learn from one another and assess the impact of their own work and advocacy.
Abby Weiss, Project Manager, HFRP.