Evaluation questions are based on the program logic and must be designed carefully from the beginning to understand the scope and limitations of the evaluation. Given that the Irrigated Agriculture Project was not designed and implemented as a package of coordinated interventions for a targeted group of beneficiaries, MCC could not design an evaluation of the overall Project. Even though the individual Activity evaluations were informative, the lack of coordination between Activities limited MCC’s ability to report on the overall impact of the Project. In the future, MCC should work with all stakeholders to understand the program logic, how the program will be implemented and clarify what the evaluation will be able to answer and not answer from the beginning. In addition, MCC should design evaluations to be able to explain “why” if the expected impacts do not materialize. MCC has addressed this lesson as evaluation scopes of work are including more technical sector expertise on the evaluation teams. In addition, many evaluations are being designed to answer “why” when expected results to do not materialize.
Lesson Learned