ABSTRACT
An evaluation is an attempt to encourage organizations to undertake processes of change on a rational basis by providing them with information on their actions. Accordingly, evaluation research is concerned with the assessment of organizations' activities or of their projects and programmes.1 In development cooperation evaluation was regarded as the third link in the sequence of the five phases in the project cycle - planning, implementation, evaluation, feedback and replanning - until well into the 1980s. In the meantime a broader view has gained ground, and evaluations are undertaken at virtually any time during the project cycle, i.e. from the "ex ante" stage through the whole project until the "ex post" stage. In technical and human resources cooperation they are no longer used primarily to monitor projects but mainly as a management and dialogue tool for all the actors in the development process through and with which "donors and partners" can learn to the benefit of the further progress of the project. The first concepts for carrying out evaluations emerged in response to the requirements of large government projects and associated capital-intensive growth-and technology-oriented development projects. Initially, this led to a form of evaluation oriented towards economic and technical aspects, which was, moreover, entirely limited to the substance of projects. The societal environment and social issues were not considered.
