Facilitating commitment, consensus, credibility, and visibility through collaborative foreign assistance project evaluations

The four key organizations involved in foreign assistance projects—those of the donor, technical advisors, host country counterparts, and beneficiaries—hold systematically different stakes in the project implementation process. As a result, each tends to reject or mistrust the goals of the other participants and resists collaborating with them during the project evaluation process. Yet, several potentially beneficial outcomes of collaboration for each of these organizations can be demonstrated, including enhanced commitment, consensus, credibility, and visibility. The evaluator plays a key role as facilitator of such a mutually beneficial process of collaboration by convincing each stakeholder that collaboration will provide the forum to promote rather than to sabotage individual stakes. In some cases, however, modified collaborative approaches may be necessary in order to bring to bear the issues and concerns of all stakeholders.