"The Cultural Reading began as text conversations among a group of professional evaluators who share expertise in and concern for issues of cultural diversity and cultural context in evaluation. The purpose of the cultural reading was to review The Program Evaluation Standards (2nd edition) with respect to coverage of cultural diversity, treatment of cultural concerns, and attention to cultural competence. This conversation was intended to build knowledge among Diversity Committee members and other relevant stakeholders within the AEA; to identify specific passages that are in need of revision; and to gather ideas on relevant resources and suggested changes for input to The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. Throughout this reflection, culture is broadly defined, inclusive of race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, social class, disability, language, and educational level or disciplinary background. It includes both individual characteristics and those of a group or collective (e.g., community or organizational culture)."

"The 'African Evaluation Guidelines' is a working document being jointly prepared by national evaluation associations and networks in Africa. It is a very useful checklist for anyone preparing to undertake an evaluation or wishing to assess the completeness of an evaluation study. It is also useful to people negotiating contracts to do an evaluation. African evaluators are kindly requested to read the guidelines and send in comments either directly to me or through your national associations or networks."

"These principles have been approved by the AEA membership. They were developed to guide the professional practice of evaluators, and inform evaluation clients and the general public about the principles they can expect to be upheld by professional evaluators."

"This site provides evaluation specialists and users with refereed checklists for designing, budgeting, contracting, staffing, managing, and assessing evaluations of programs, personnel, students, and other evaluands; collecting, analyzing, and reporting evaluation information; and determining merit, worth, and significance. Each checklist is a distillation of valuable lessons learned from practice. The site's purpose is to improve the quality and consistency of evaluations and enhance evaluation capacity through the promotion and use of high-quality checklists targeted to specific evaluation tasks and approaches."

"The SEVAL Standards are valid for evaluations in general (excepting personnel evaluations), independent of the institutional context, the procedure chosen (e.g., internal or external evaluations) and the specific thematic area. The "object of the evaluation", as understood in the SEVAL Standards, can apply to programs, measures, projects, organizations, institutions, policies, products, materials, or other objects of evaluation, but not to persons. The SEVAL Standards are addressed to all those who participate in or influence an evaluation. Thus, the SEVAL Standards are directed to evaluators as well as to those who let evaluation contracts, but also to other persons who can support these Standards (as in those who address evaluation in their teaching or continuing education programs)."

This module is important because it explains what a baseline study is and how it is related to the mid-term and terminal evaluations. It describes when to conduct a baseline study and how to ensure that the outcome and impact indicators on which the study will collect data are clearly stated and, not least, in line with the operation design as outlined in the logical framework.

The Policy Analysis Unit works actively in the area of GRIPP through facilitating the generation of policy recommendations based on research evidence and policy dialogues. It focuses on three priority areas, namely social policy and poverty, social protection and health, and education and social innovation; and it works with a range of partners to enhance the implementation and evaluation of social policy.

"The IUCN Evaluation Policy (French/Spanish) was developed during 1999-2000 and approved by the IUCN Council in October 2001. It is based on a survey of the policies of bilateral and multilateral agencies and large NGOs, and on a consensus among IUCN programme managers on the key elements of evaluation that are important for IUCN. The Policy is consistent with the OECD DAC Evaluation Working Group principles and guidelines, and thus consistent with the evaluation policies and standards of the major core donors of IUCN. The Policy sets out the aim and purpose of evaluation in IUCN, the criteria, guiding principles and standards, and types of evaluations to be undertaken in IUCN. Given that the evaluation function is new in IUCN, the Policy also elaborates on the management of and the roles and responsibilities in the evaluation process in IUCN. It is expected that as the evaluation function matures and develops in IUCN, the Policy will be updated as required."

Policy document on performance monitoring and evaluation The policy document on performance monitoring and evaluation, "Improving Performance in Government: Our approach" outlines government's approach to improving its performance. Government has improved access to services for people who were previously denied. This document forms the basis of plans to improve the quality of service delivery. Read more about the policy document in the statement by the Minister in The Presidency Performance Monitoring and Evaluation as well as Administration in the Presidency, Collins Chabane, and questions and answers on the document. Minister Chabane tabled the document in Parliament on 7 September 2009 For comments and enquiries on the policy document, please contact: Ronette Engela E-mail: Ronette.Engela@po.gov.za Fax: 086 683 5601

Programme Evaluation - A beginner's guide