Learning lessons from experience: The role of evaluation in the administration of the U.K. aid programme

Formal evaluation has now become well established in the Overseas Development Administration (ODA) which has a separate Evaluation Department with an annual budget of £300,000 for commissioned studies. This enables about twenty to twenty-five evaluations to be carried out annually, usually by mixed ODA/outside teams. The reports are submitted to ODA'S Projects and Evaluation Committee and are usually made available to people with a professional interest. Many useful lessons have been learnt not only about ODA'S internal aid procedures, but also about factors that affect the success or otherwise of projects and programmes and also concerning aid and development strategy as a whole. The evaluations have led to improved monitoring, greater emphasis on sociological and environmental factors, greater awareness of the need to associate manpower and training with capital aid, and more appreciation of the need to look at projects in their wider context.