ON EVALUATION WORK
MASAI sees evaluation as HELPING and PRODUCTIVE exercises for the organizations and programs concerned – this is our primary orientation and paramount concern. MASAI harnesses its facility for evaluation technologies and its independent and objective perspective towards this.
Evaluators mainly facilitate this self-assessment of the organizations rather just gather data and pass judgments as external ‘experts’. Indeed, we gladly concede to time and again learning from the accumulated experience of the organizations themselves.
MASAI’s evaluations do not proceed from the so-called experts’ pre-set standards but rather begin from what is already there. We recognize that all organizations have their own functioning Planning- Monitoring-Evaluation (PME) systems. Also, that any single external evaluation is only a small part of the entire PME process of an organization. Thus, evaluations necessarily start by assessing what current practices are – in terms of success indicators and information flows, for example – and then proceed to build on these.
MASAI’s experience has made us conscious of what constitutes efficient and effective evaluations. Firstly, they can focus on the minimum requirements for any particular scheme, system or program to work and need not belabour all relevant details. For example, PME systems generally work adequately when there are: basic unities among all concerned regarding orientation; factual reading of internal and external conditions; and common understanding of targets, tasks, thrusts and indicators. Secondly, they must take into account how organizations have through their practice been able to weigh what is and what is not relevant. The organizations themselves are most intimately aware of the trade-offs to be made given their concrete time, resource and skills constraints and oftentimes unpredictably fluid situations.
The needs of the peoples’ organization (POs) and the communities are paramount. MASAI hopes that its evaluation help organizations objectively look at themselves and assess how their programs concretely serve these needs – with the aim of further improving their service to the people.
Consultancy is given to organizations which need an external person to conduct a diagnosis of its organizational life. Gaps and problems are identified and specific and timely measures are systematically planned to address their urgent organizational concerns.
Consultancy must then be an expressed need of the constituents for it to receive full support. It can initially start as management proposal but it should eventually be agreed upon by the staff, Board and program partners. As such, the most important requirement is for the Consultant to be trusted and accepted by the constituents of the organization. Secondly, he/she must possess an adequate knowledge of the organization’s operations, culture and strategic direction.
Trainings are never one-shot deals. Instead, Trainings are conceptualized, planned and systematically implemented by the organization. Needs assessment is a prerequisite before designing a training course. This ensures that the design of the training is the most appropriate for the concerned staff members or target audience.
Always, the emphasis is on actual needs, appropriate design, and continuing program for organizational enhancement. Without one of these three elements, any training interventions would be limited.
Experience has taught MASAI that mere training inputs are ineffective if these are not grounded on the actual needs and demands of the organization. We always start where the organization and its people are.
