© DEval

Goals and Functions

The German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval) was established in 2012. It provides governmental and non-governmental development cooperation organisations with independent and scientifically sound evaluations, which they can feed into their strategies, instruments and programmes. By enabling evidence-based policy-making, DEval aims to make German development cooperation more effective and to increase transparency in the use of public funds. For this purpose, DEval is mandated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

DEval´s Vision and Mission

Vision: Our evaluation work has contributed to improving the effectiveness of development cooperation, which in turn fosters sustainable development processes. To that end, we are using our knowledge and potential as an independent evaluation institute at the science-policy-practice interface.

Our Mission is to enable evidence-based policy making by providing decision makers in the field of development cooperation with strategically relevant information. Our institute also promotes learning processes and a constructive feedback culture as well as the strengthening of accountability in our policy field. We carry out independent and scientifically sound evaluations, develop and disseminate relevant evaluation methods, and strengthen the evaluation capacities in partner countries of German development cooperation. As part of our work, we also collaborate with a wide range of governmental and civil society actors, and other scientific bodies. At the same time we actively participate in professional discussions in the development research and evaluation communities. We are committed to recognised evaluation and research standards, and accordingly assume responsibility towards all the evaluation stakeholders and users.

Our Functions

Infografik auf Englisch mit den wichtigsten DEval-Handlungsfeldern, nämlich Durchführung von Evaluierungen und Wirkungsanalysen, die Weiterentwicklung von Methoden und Standards, die Förderung von Evaluierungskapazitäten in ausgewählten Ländern sowie Wissensverbreitung und Vernetzung in Politik, Praxis und Wissenschaft.

DEval’s core task is to analyse and evaluate German development cooperation activities, taking an independent and practice-oriented approach that draws upon academic research. Thus, our institute acts at the interface between politics, academia and government administration with the overarching goal of providing valuable evidence for the development cooperation policy area.

Another one of our central tasks is to further develop existing evaluation methods and standards with a view to improving evaluation practice. DEval also works on strengthening evaluation capacities in the partner countries of German development cooperation. Last but not least, it is our duty to disseminate the knowledge gained in the evaluation, in order to promote learning processes and to facilitate decision-making in development cooperation.

Our Stakeholders

Drei Personen unterhalten sich im DEval-Foyer

Our evaluations and the resulting recommendations are aimed primarily at political decision-makers but also at governmental and civil society development organisations and at partners in developing and emerging countries. Other target groups include academics and experts from evaluation practice.

In addition, we strive to make complex issues in German development cooperation accessible to a broad expert audience. To this end, we make all our evaluation reports available on our website.

Our Network

Working in international networks that evaluate and research development cooperation is of key importance for our institute. Therefore, DEval is a member of the European Evaluation Society (EES), the Gesellschaft für Evaluation (DeGEval e.V.), the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), as well as partner of the OECD DAC Network of Development Evaluation (EvalNet), the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI), EvalPartners and Red de Seguimiento, Evaluación y Sistematización de América Latina y el Caribe (ReLAC). Furthermore, we work together with the Campbell Collaboration, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and the Development Engagement Lab (DEL).

Memberships and Collaborations

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