ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the two observations, using the example of health care as an illustration. First, real-world problems are broad and complex and evaluation must take such complexity into account. Second, evaluation, as well as policy and project design, must also incorporate an understanding of the information failures and limitations that are rampant in developing country markets and organizations. The Comprehensive Development Framework explicitly highlights the links between sectors and actors in the development arena. Development strategy needs to take account of these links and, consequently, so does evaluation. Evaluation of the impact of poverty-targeted health interventions must be similarly comprehensive in its scope, even as the evaluation adheres to scientific standards that were developed within a narrow disciplinary framework. Households that have both sanitation facilities and clean water experience an almost 50 percent lower incidence of child mortality than households that have access to neither—a tremendous difference.
