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11 Jan 2010

The Multiple, Valuable Roles of Programme Evaluation Discussed at Westat India Seminar

On 11 January, 2010, Westat India hosted a seminar on Evaluating Social Programmes. The seminar, which took place in New Delhi, included attendees from numerous organisations representing Corporate Social Responsibility Departments, foundations and other funding agencies, and organisations involved in service delivery.

Dr. Alexander Ratnofsky, Westat India's Director, was the featured speaker. "Many view evaluation as just about outcomes," he noted. "They want to know: Is a programme working or not?" Dr. Ratnofsky continued that this limited way of thinking focuses on the negative aspects of a programme and on, ultimately, only the end product. "There is fear that a programme is not working, or companies wrongly think that it takes too much time and money to do an evaluation."

Evaluation is not just about outcomes, explained Dr. Ratnofsky: "Evaluation is the systematic application of social research for assuring the conceptualisation, design, and implementation and utility of programmes and policies. Evaluation brings to the table a broad set of approaches and techniques for a range of purposes and questions throughout the life of a programme."

Programme evaluation is highly beneficial to both service providers and funding organisations. Providers gain knowledge on the ability to:

Funders learn answers to key questions:

Simply put: Evaluation is integral to the entire life cycle of a programme: planning, development, operation, and outcome.

"Providers as well as funding organisations can make better decisions throughout the life of a programme based on sound information," concluded Dr. Ratnofsky, "information that is gleaned from the process of evaluation."

The seminar concluded with a question-and-answer session. Additional Westat India staff, Vasudha Narayanan and Jawaharlal Buddhavarapu, were on hand to speak with individual organisation representatives on ways Westat India can help them meet their needs.

The following feedback is from one of the attendees, Merry Barua, Director, Action For Autism, New Delhi:

"Attending the discussion made us think about the projects we have going that we could take further through evaluations. For financial reasons, it is sometimes difficult to think about doing this kind of work, but it would be so valuable to see the impact of our programmes on the families. For instance, we know our mother-child training programme has a lot of impact, but it's all anecdotal. We've never really done a project to see the how it works in a more systematic way. That would perhaps help us to expand the programme. This seminar got us thinking about lines to pursue that we had not thought of before."

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