Goals and Functions

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 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.