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Key Message

Standard program evaluation methodologies may not be sufficient to determine whether collaboration among institutions is working and making a difference.

Evaluation

Over the past several years of operating our own networks and providing advice to others, IISD has noticed that there is not yet a consistent discipline or framework for the monitoring, assessment and evaluation of collaboration among groups of institutions.

We have observed that network and partnership evaluations often begin with a process to solicit from members their original expectations and their observations about whether their particular collaboration accomplished what it set out to do. The difficulty with that approach is that the collaboration is not assessed against any external benchmarks—against what network or partnership management experience tells us could be optimal performance measures. We believe that there is sufficient understanding now of how networks and partnerships can and should be managed, that it is no longer enough to assess them against the expectations (either high or low) of those involved.

IISD's primary area of interest is in developing simple and powerful network evaluation models, although we are also working with other experts on the review of partnerships. We thank those who have made their evaluations public, for others to learn from.

Work in progress

We are contributing to the work of the U.K.-based group BPD (Building Partnerships for Development in Water and Sanitation) on the evaluation of partnerships. The paper, "Turning partnership evaluation on its head: considerations for partnership practitioners" is forthcoming at www.bpdws.org.

Key contributions

A selection of evaluations undertaken by IISD