Evaluation criteria and rating scale

Evaluation criteria

The projects are evaluated in accordance with the standardised international evaluation criteria of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD-DAC).

Detailed explanations of the criteria:

Relevance is used to assess whether the project adequately addresses an important development objective (priority), whether the design was suitable for this purpose (validity of the results chain) and whether the needs of the target group were adequately taken into account. In addition, it is assessed whether the strategic requirements of the partner country and the German government were taken into account.

Coherence refers to the compatibility of the development measure taken with other interventions in the partner country and/or sector. Internal coherence focuses on the complementarity and synergies of German Development Cooperation (DC() and consistency with international norms and standards to which German DC is committed. External coherence analyses the complementarity, coordination and use of joint systems with partners, other donors and international organisations.

The criterion of effectiveness is used to check whether the objectives of the development projects have been achieved at outcome level. In order to enable a meaningful target-performance comparison, project objectives are - if possible - expressed in concretely measurable production or supply levels. Positive or negative effects that are not directly intended and that can be observed are also included in the evaluation.

The criterion of efficiency refers to the economic viability of a project. The economical use of resources is of central importance here. Production efficiency assesses the appropriateness of the input required to produce goods and services. Even more important is allocation efficiency - the appropriate ratio of resources used to impacts achieved. To assess this, comparison with alternative ways of achieving similar impacts is used.

Sustainability refers to the permanence of effects at outcome and impact level. Our goal is not only to achieve short-term improvements, but to reach sustainable impact. Therefore, we check whether the improvements that have occurred are lasting. Prerequisite for lasting effects and impacts is, that the project executing agency or the target group is able to successfully continue the funded project in the long term after the external financial support has ended.

Evaluation criteria shown in the circle and a question for each criterion

Graphic: OECD-DAC Criteria

The graph shows the 6 evaluation criteria (relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability) as well as the question of how to approach each criterion. Issues include

Relevance - are we doing the right thing?

Coherence - Is the intervention compatible with other interventions and political goals?

Effectiveness - do the project achieve its objectives?

Efficiency - Are the results achieved in a cost effective manner?

Impact - Does the project help to achieve overarching goals?

Sustainability - Are outcomes long-lasting?

Rating scale and overall rating

To evaluate the success of the projects, grades are awarded for each criterion on a six-point scale. This is used to derive an overall rating for the success of the projects, which is formed from a project-specific weighting of the six graded individual criteria. Levels 1-3 of the overall rating characterise a "successful" project, levels 4-6 an "unsuccessful" project. It should be noted that a project can generally only be considered developmentally "successful" if the achievement of the project objective at outcome-level ("effectiveness"), the impact ("overarching developmental objective") and the sustainability are rated as at least "partially successful" (rating 3).

Grade scale shows a six-step rating of very successful to completely unsuccessful

Graphic: Rating scale

The graph on the score scale shows a 6-step rating of very successful (rating scale 1), successful (rating scale 2), limited success (rating scale 3), rather unsuccessful (rating scale 4), mostly unsuccessful (rating scale 5) and completely unsuccessful (rating scale 6).

Rating scale 1: very successful, result that clearly exceeds expectations

Rating scale 2: successful: fully in line with expectations and without any shortcoming

Rating scale 3: moderately successful: project falls short of expectations, but the positive results dominate

Rating scale 4: moderately unsuccessful, significantly below expectations, with negative results dominating despite discernible positive results

Rating scale 5: unsuccessful: despite some positive partial results, the negative results clearly dominate

Rating scale 6: highly unsuccessful: the project has no impact or the situation has actually deteriorated