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Evaluation criteria
Projects are analysed on the basis of six key criteria (relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, overarching developmental impact and sustainability) agreed upon by the international community of donors as represented by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The rating is summarised using a numerical scale.
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 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 analysing allocattion efficiency - the appropriate ratio of resources used to impacts achieved. To assess this, comparison with alternative ways of achieving similar impacts is used.
The overarching developmental impacts measure the intended and unintended changes brought about by the measure. It refers to the objectives for which the intervention was chosen. Overarching impacts cannot always be measured, but plausibility must be estimated with circumstantial evidence.
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 or technical support has ended.
The key criteria are initially assessed on the basis of a six-point rating scale. Scores of 1 to 3 indicate a "successful" project, while 4 to 6 are "unsuccessful".
The partial scores for the six key criteria are combined in accordance with a specific weighting that is defined for each project in order to give an overall score. This overall rating indicates at a glance whether a project has been successful, and to what extent.
It should be noted that a project can generally be considered developmentally “successful” only if the achievement of the project objective (“effectiveness”), the impact on the overall objective (“overarching developmental impact”) and the sustainability are rated at least “satisfactory” (level 3).
