Having just welcomed the new year 2016, this seems like a good time to reflect
on the recently ended International Year of Evaluation. As most of the DEM
alumni may know, 2015 had been designated as the International Year of
Evaluation in order to advocate and promote evaluation and evidence-based
policy making at different levels. However, some academics have reservations
with respect to the drive for evidence-based policy making. One of them is the
social anthropologist Rosalind Eyben who recently co-edited the book “The
Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development”. Given her
extensive career in international development policy and practice we invited
her to reflect on the current evaluation and evidence discourse.
contribute and how we can assess the utility and
quality of our contribution. It is because of the focus
on attribution rather than contribution that we are
stuck in this results framework.
E2C: You mentioned that one of the false
assumptions is that causal change is linear
Rosalind Eyben on the politics of
evidence and results
in nature. But in international development
we often use linear log frames. How do you
convince people to use the alternatives?
E2C: Did you participate in any activity related
to the Year of Evaluation?
R.: I did not participate. In fact I was highly
sceptical as it seemed to be a classic case of the
aid industry spending a lot of time going to lots
of meetings. However, there was one enormous
advantage of the initiative, namely that it was
global. So, in terms of shifting the discourse it might
have been significant.
E2C: In your book you argue that results and
evidence discourses are becoming so dominant
in international development. Why is this sector
different from other sectors?
R.: Well I think it differs from one country to another
and it is obviously not just in the international
development sector. It is a much wider discourse. In
domestic policy and programming you have some
citizen pushback through the members of parliament
or local councillors. There is some kind of democratic
process at work which keeps the bureaucrats, who
are designing all these results based frameworks,
in touch with reality. In international development
you do not have this direct citizen pushback. It is a
real problem of international development aid that
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it somehow detaches from reality like a balloon and
goes somewhere else. It is this tendency to float
away from the real world that has contributed to the
dominance of the results and evidence discourses in
the sector.
E2C: You have some reservations about the
push for effectiveness and efficiency. Which
alternative do you propose?
R.: I want an alternative understanding of how
change happens and how development aid can
support change. The whole results agenda is
premised on a certain view of linear change. I argue
that historical change is not linear, but complex,
messy, and full of surprises. Yet the whole results
framework is linked to the idea of attribution, not
contribution. Donors want to demonstrate that
thanks to their millions of euros, x, y and z are
achieved, ignoring the fact that there is a multitude
of actors and processes at work which contributed
to change, or equally contributed to no change.
Attribution is a completely fallacious perspective
on how donors are – or are not – supporting the
development change that they want to achieve.
There is an anxiety to demonstrate attribution
rather than to engage in a planning and evaluation
process which is about how we can most usefully
R.: So, that is what this Big Push Forward initiative
is all about. I don’t want to go into a conversation
about methodologies, even though that is the trap
that usually happens. People tend to ask about the
alternatives. We know that there is no shortage
of alternatives, but it somehow seems easier
for people to get back into that methodological
conversation than to face the political challenge.
I have been trying to get people to talk about the
political challenges in using these alternatives. Let’s
talk about the actual use of these methodologies
and the reasons why they are not being used. Yet,
there is no magic bullet to get people to think
differently, especially because we all suffer from
cognitive dissonance. For instance, when I was
talking before the House of Commons about how
messy and unexpected policy making processes can
be in the UK they agreed with me. However, when
I argued that there is no reason to think that when
you support an education policy in Uganda the
process would be linear, they stopped listening. The
point was not even mentioned in the report of the
meeting. This is what I call cognitive dissonance.
E2C: What is your advice to our former
students and current policy makers on how to
deal with evidence in their decision making
processes?
R.: People do not base decisions on evidence
anyhow. That is of course the final irony of the
whole process. Evidence is extremely useful to