The Comprehensive Evaluation of Development Results: Behind the Scenes

This edition of eVALUation Matters focuses on the CEDR exercise – a consultative, iterative process which prioritized the engagement and involvement of all key stakeholders throughout the exercise in order to mitigate the effects of the key challenges involved in such a complicated undertaking. The publication synthesizes viewpoints and reflections by drawing on the extant literature on complex evaluations, field challenges, and teamwork, while at the same time incorporating rich empirical material, anecdotal vignettes, and personal stories from the field, to highlight the CEDR experience in all its complexity and diversity. Each article provides a further snapshot of the dynamics of a complex evaluation.

Contributing authors to this issue of eVALUation Matters draw on their nuanced insights and personal experiences in reconstructing the intricate picture of the CEDR expedition, in the process teasing-out key lessons and learning outcomes. Viewed from this perspective, the articles and papers in this issue constitute, individually and collectively, a set of relevant, pragmatic, and often overlapping analyses of the challenges and opportunities integral to the CEDR exercise.