Why bother with the evaluation? What are its multiple purposes? How will the evaluation help enhance the evidence base?

Evaluations often invoke concern. Smart learning organizations need to constantly communicate the multiple purpose of evaluation to their stakeholders, which can include:

• Clarifying the nature of the activities and how they are expected to achieve outcomes, bringing to the surface the assumptions by which the activities impact short, intermediate and long-term outcomes;
• Helping to define what success means to different stakeholders. Especially in the case of complex interventions, success might mean very different things to different stakeholders.
• Testing if the complex intervention is “working”.