Objectives and Strategy

Vision: Our evaluation work contributes 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.

Mission: 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.

DEval contributes to more effective, efficient, and sustainable development cooperation. Five years from now, we would like to have further strengthened our position as an institute of reference for high-quality evaluation work in the political sphere. Our strategy is embedded within DEval’s vision and mission as well as within the evaluation guidelines of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Five Objectives for the next Five Years

1. Our evaluations are more useful due to our increased focus on implementation in regard to the primary target groups of German development cooperation.
2. The evaluation system of German development cooperation is strengthened because we have encouraged quality, acceptance, and implementation of our evaluations.
3. Our work’s partnership aspect is strengthened due to our continued encouragement of evidence-based policy in the German development cooperation partner countries.
4. DEval’s role as an application-based research institution is strengthened because we position the methods and contents of our contributions in the relevant research landscape.
5. DEval continues to be a stable, resilient, and efficient organisation which has managed to make its actions more sustainable whilst maintaining its integrity.

Institutional Strategy  2022-2026