Evaluation at Enabel

Evaluations generate evidence, knowledge, and lessons that allow Enabel to inform decision-making with a view to maximising its impact and to being accountable for the changes it seeks to achieve

Our approach

Become a learning organisation

Evaluations support Enabel’s ambition to become a learning organisation. Evaluations explain which mechanisms, conditions and contextual elements were critical for achieving or not achieving the intended developmental results and systemic changes. Lessons learned from evaluations are evidence-based. The knowledge generated by evaluations contributes to a broader understanding of development processes, to innovation and to adaptations of development strategies.

Support Result Based Management

Through the findings and lessons learned, evaluation allows the organisation to learn from its experience, to use these learnings to support decision-making and to strengthen accountability.

Support strategic decision-making

Through the recommendations and lessons learned, evaluations support strategic decision-making for Enabel and its partners. Lessons learned can be incorporated into future decisions by Enabel and its stakeholders. For evaluations to play an influential role in strategic decision-making, it is important that they not only respond to a need in a timely manner, but that internal knowledge management mechanisms and processes, sharing and decision-making platforms exist and are used to facilitate the use of this knowledge.

Reinforce accountability

Evaluations are a means of assessing the performance of projects to be reliably and transparently accountable for the use of resources, for the results achieved or not achieved, and to explain the how and why. Evaluations also foster transparent communication with stakeholders and the general public and help to ensure accountability for actions and decisions taken.

Ensure usefulness

The usefulness and purpose of an evaluation is determined by its clearly defined objectives, its timeliness and the use of its results. Enabel’s experience and lessons-learned over the past few years show that evaluations should have very clear and focused objectives. Enabel is aware of the link between the accountability, learning and steering purposes, yet we choose to assign one main purpose per evaluation, according to its type. This purpose also determines the most appropriate timing for the conduct of the evaluation.
For evaluation results to have real influence on decision-making, they must be perceived as relevant and useful and must reflect the interests and needs of the various stakeholders, including the end users of our actions.

Align with complementary instruments

Enabel wants to ensure an integrated approach and a better alignment between the different instruments of results-based management. Evaluating should not be seen as an isolated process, but rather as a link in the chain that complements and builds on previous thinking and analysis. Thus, the different types of evaluations conducted by Enabel complete the entire results-based management and learning process at the project, country and organisational levels in a balanced and efficient way.

Download the evaluation policy

The Internal Evaluation Office

The Internal Evaluation Office plays a significant role within Enabel, being responsible for internal policies on evaluation and results-based management, and overseeing quality assessments. It assumes the critical responsibility of ensuring the steering, execution, and validation of all evaluations sponsored by Enabel & upholds the organization’s commitment to rigorous evaluation practices and influent evaluations.

The Internal Evaluation office reports to the President of the Board of Directors, ensuring independence from Enabel’s Directorates and operational implementation, which is crucial for conducting evaluations in an unbiased and impartial manner.

Enabel uses external professional evaluators to ensure a sufficiently broad and diverse range of evaluation expertise and the use of internationally recognised quality standards, making the evaluations more credible and useful.

Within the framework of the certification of the internal evaluation system of the development cooperation actors, the Special Evaluation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs organises the external evaluation of the quality of Enabel’s monitoring and evaluation system.

What we do

Reference for evaluation & RBM

Enabel’s Internal Evaluation Office is responsible for developing, disseminating and maintaining Enabel’s internal policies on results-based management (RBM) and evaluation. To this end, it organises and carries out quality assessments of Enabel’s results systems, products, and services and makes recommendations to improve their overall quality and effectiveness. The Office also strives to develop Enabel’s capacity on evaluation and results-monitoring in line with frameworks for results-based management and evaluation.

Gateway for external evaluations

Enabel’s Internal Evaluation Office facilitates evaluations carried out by external actors, like the Special Evaluation Office, that require collaboration with Enabel. This includes facilitating communication between external evaluation teams and Enabel staff, designating appropriate focal points within Enabel, and monitoring the implementation of corporate recommendations from these evaluations. Additionally, the Internal Evaluation Office collaborates to the certification of Enabel’s evaluation system by supporting the coordination of internal activities within this framework.

Manager of internal evaluations

Enabel’s Internal Evaluation Office coordinates and organises strategic evaluations. These evaluations aim to generate knowledge to enable the organization to develop relevant policies & improve implementation strategies, based on its own experience and lessons learned from sectoral or thematic projects. Additionally, the office manages project and cooperation programme evaluations as well as the framework contract established for these evaluations.

Evaluation champion within Enabel

Enabel’s Internal Evaluation Office actively promotes evaluation by advocating for its value and role in improving organizational accountability, effectiveness, and impact. This includes raising awareness and promoting evaluation principles among Enabel staff and stakeholders, encouraging their involvement in the evaluation process, fostering a culture of learning and feedback within the organization where evaluations are seen as opportunities for growth and improvement, and organizing events to share lessons learned.

News & Events

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News

20 November 2024

COP29: Enabel welcomes climate financing from the Walloon region for the preservation of lake Kivu and Tanganyika in Africa

The Tanganyika Kivu Water Management Project (TAKIWAMA), with a total budget of 31 million euro, is part of the Team Europe Initiative on Transboundary Water Management in Africa, which aims to improve cooperation between African countries for the sustainable management of shared water resources.

Events

07 November 2024

EU climate policies and impact on youth in developing countries

In the framework of COP29, Enabel is co-organising a side event to discuss how EU climate policies impact low and middle-income countries.

Events

25 October 2024

Delivering impact by strengthening collaboration in fragile low-income contexts

In the framework of the 2024 World Bank Group Annual Meeting, Enabel organised a side-event together with Expertise France, GIZ and SNV.

Resources

09 October 2024

Belgium-Rwanda bilateral cooperation – Programme report 2019-2024

The 2019-2024 Belgium-Rwanda Cooperation programme contributed to the advancement of Rwanda’s sustainable development goals, enhanced socio-economic well-being, and fostered inclusive growth.

national teachers' college in kaliro, Uganda

Resources

08 October 2024

Promoting the widespread use of ecological and resilient infrastructures

In the face of climate and environmental challenges, Enabel is in favour of the widespread application of green building principles in cooperation programmes.