Institutions conduct evaluations to build their institutional knowledge base. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) makes a basic distinction between evaluations commissioned by its senior management for institutional and strategic purposes and evaluations of individual projects/programmes commissioned by its divisions or the Swiss cooperation offices abroad.
Types of evaluation
The most common types of SDC evaluations in brief:
Project evaluations
Mid-term or end-term evaluations of a programme/project commissioned by SDC divisions or project managers abroad.
Cooperation programme evaluations
Mid-term or end-term evaluations of a country or regional cooperation programme commissioned by the SDC's senior management.
Example: Cooperation Strategy Evaluation – Nepal 2018–2022
Institutional evaluations
Cross-project evaluations examining the SDC or partner organisations, commissioned by the SDC's senior management.
Thematic evaluations
Evaluation of a selection of development interventions, all of which address specific development priorities, commissioned by the SDC's senior management.
Example: Independent Evaluation of SDC’s Engagement in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation 2015-2020
Impact evaluations
Evaluations to establish the causal effect of an intervention on one or several outcomes, commissioned by the SDC's senior management. Impact evaluations examine the whole project cycle to show how and why interventions worked prior to scaling up.
