Policy Advocacy Evaluation: Designing Rigorous and Useful Evaluations

This class explores the important evaluation area of policy advocacy evaluation. As development practice shifts to focus on the structural drivers of poverty around the world, and seek long-term social and institutional change, interventions increasingly involve shaping policies, programs and social norms. This class examines the theoretical and practical challenges of measuring influence on policy deliberation and implementation. It explores emerging approaches developed to provide rigor and actionable insights about what works and what doesn’t. Within the context of organizations that are promoting change, with a focus on NGOs and philanthropic funders. Topics include matching evaluation design and methods to evaluation questions, institutional dimensions that effect evaluation use, and the use of evaluation findings.