As global discussions of evaluation standards become more contextually nuanced, culturally responsive conceptions of ethics have not been sufficiently discussed. In academic social research, ethical clearance processes have been designed to protect vulnerable people from harm related to participation in a research project. This article expands the…

Transformative change is needed if the world is to achieve the sustainable development goals. Such change requires attention to culture, ethics, and values. We discuss the need to be responsive to the voices of Indigenous scholars in terms of the assumptions that guide methodological choices in the evaluation of international initiatives. We…

In this Exemplars case, the fifth and final under the direction of the current coeditors, the authors present a reflective account of an ongoing, complex, multiyear, multinational monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system conducted for African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), an international development program. The…

Attention to cultural competence has significantly increased in the human services over the last two decades. Evaluators have long had similar concerns and have made a more concentrated effort in recent years to adapt evaluation methodology to varying cultural contexts. Little of this literature, however, has focused on the extent to which local…

This article argues that given its structural conditions, development aid bears a particularly heavy burden of learning and accountability. Unfortunately, however, the organization of evaluation guarantees that evaluations will be inconsistent and it creates incentives for positive bias. This article presents evidence from organizational studies…

The past few years have seen efforts in several countries and a wide range of disciplines to adopt and apply existing professional standards for guiding and judging evaluation services and/or develop new standards. Some of the efforts have drawn from the work and products of the North American Joint Committee on Standards for Educational…