Evaluation teams should include sector experts around the expected benefit streams and have all components of the evaluation managed by one lead evaluator even if the expertise lies outside the prime evaluator. Having sector-specific expertise is key for evaluations of land and improves stakeholder buy-in, instrument development, data analysis and results dissemination. The evaluation of the Peri-Urban Rangeland Project had two components run by two different evaluators. The main component was the socioeconomic survey, and the supporting component was the land quality evaluation component. the evaluation team conducting the socioeconomic evaluation component was well qualified to conduct the impact evaluation on the statistical side but did not include an expert in rangeland management. This caused some consternation among local stakeholders and required a learning curve by the independent evaluator to understand the sector. Whereas for the land quality evaluation, the independent evaluation team was well versed in the sector and had close relations with government, civil society and research community, who they worked together with to understand the findings and adopt learnings in future efforts. Having an expert in the rangeland management for the main socioeconomic component of the evaluation would have brought more depth to the evaluation and learnings. In addition, although having two separate evaluators allowed MCC to bring in both experts in evaluation and land quality and rangeland health, this management structure led to a lack of synergy, conflicting methodologies and problems merging the two evaluation component findings into a clear message. In the future, it would be better to hire one contractor who subcontracts and manages the joint process from beginning, including all required expertise. In more recent evaluations, MCC has included requirements for experts in land administration, natural resources management and geospatial and the independent evaluators have been able to subcontract the expertise. This has allowed for a smoother evaluation process.
Lesson Learned