Evaluations & Impact Assessments

Evaluations & Impact Assessments

HII specialises in humanitarian and development project and program evaluations in fragile environments. This includes process, performance, impact, capacity and accountability assessments and evaluations. We also provide quality assurance for internal evaluations.

Why we do this. Our vision is for a healthier, safer and more equal planet. Our contribution to achieving this vision will never be more than a drop in the ocean. We would like our drop to be focused on people who face extreme hardship. These people disproportionately live in fragile environments. We work with them, and with implementing organisations, to reduce extreme hardship by strengthening the results of humanitarian projects, and by ensuring project oversight and accountability.

Where we can, we like to be involved right from a project’s start. Our early involvement ensures that baselines are sound and evaluation questions are clear. In most evaluations we frame these evaluation questions using some or all of the criteria/commitments from external frameworks such as OECD DAC and CHS.

In the early stages of a project we support our clients with the design of an evaluation framework, which includes a proportionate and efficient data gathering and processing system. Such a system ensures adequate monitoring throughout the project cycle. It also ensures that ‘fluid’ data are documented in real time. This avoids the common problem of data gaps that lead to a failure to come to clear evaluative conclusions.

Later, when the actual evaluation starts, we utilise existing data and gather our own. When we gather data, we generally sample our sites and respondents independently from our clients, but where possible in close consultation with the people our clients aim to support. We do so ethically, and make sure our adherence to ethical norms is verifiable and enforceable. Our analysis is generally a team effort that we support with our strong, real-time Quality Assurance capability.

Towards the end of our assessment process, we work with our clients and respondents to craft actionable and useful recommendations that are rooted in evidence and capture our joint learning. We value this joint final effort, as it increases the chance of our recommendations improving humanitarian practice.

HOW WE WORK

We curate a sizeable network of evaluators, enumerators and substance specialists that are able and equipped to operate safely in fragile contexts. They do their work in close cooperation with affected communities. Within these communities, our teams seek out, listen to and amplify the voices of those who often remain unheard.

Project Examples

Impact evaluation of CARMA 2 protection and cash assistance project in Northwest Syria and Southern Syria. The project included multi-purpose cash assistance, cash for protection and protection referral pathways. The impact evaluation used a difference in difference approach with baseline data and primary source data also collected.

Impact evaluation of a protection project implemented by a GFFO partner in Sudan for women and single parent households in the borderlands of Sudan. The evaluation was conducted using a QED approach using primary source data collected at the end of the project, combined with a UNHCR dataset for the non-treatment group.

Dr. Willem van Eekelen

Willem is HII’s Associate Evaluation Director responsible for evaluative quality assurance and strategic direction across all practices.

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