Barriers to Evaluation in Developing Countries

The author takes an exploratory research approach to discovering barriers to evaluation and evaluation capacity building for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating within developing countries. Secondary research is performed including a thorough review of available academic literature on evaluation and evaluation capacity building. The research focuses on understanding the factors limiting evaluation practices in developing countries including the unique environment, impact of resource dependency theory and the importance of stakeholder engagement. The author finds most barriers to evaluation relate to six common categories; technology, language, illiteracy, organizational learning, culture and political. A brief case is provided using a Ghanaian anti child-trafficking organization to demonstrate the common barriers to evaluation found in developing countries. Volkov and King\u27s Checklist for Building Organizational Evaluation Capacity, Stufflebeam\u27s Institutionalizing Evaluation, and Preskill and Torres\u27 Readiness for Organizational Learning and Evaluation (ROLE) survey instrument are used to demonstrate organizational readiness for evaluation. The author presents recommendations to maximize ECB for organizations operating in developing countries including the use of theory of change models, logic models and evaluation framework. Data collection tools and methods are suggested taking into consideration the potential barriers to evaluation in developing countries. This project suggests a mixed methods approach to collecting data in developing countries and provides suggestions for both quantitative and qualitative measures. Long term suggestions on maximizing ECB and recommendations on how to improve program evaluation are also provided