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Goal of this study is to identify conditions of successful evaluation projects, to have a look how the current evaluation practice looks like and to integrate everything into a theoretical evaluation approach which helps to manage evaluation projects.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development Link (IFAD) was established in 1977 to finance agricultural development projects which focus on food production in the developing countries. IFAD's main objective is to eradicate rural poverty by empowering poor rural women and men in these countries to achieve higher incomes and improved food security.
IFAD created an Evaluation Office Link (EO) responsible for evaluating its projects and programs. The EO is to assess what works and what doesn't and to determine how successful the policies and strategies are in tackling poverty alleviation in rural areas.
A Methodological Framework for Project Evaluation (MFE) was introduced in 2002 which consists of a set of criteria to be applied to all project evaluations. There are three main evaluation criteria, each divided into a number of elements, that provide the basis on which project achievements and impacts are to be assessed: performance of the project, impact on rural poverty and performance of the partners.
The MFE was updated in 2003 and is available on-line.

Evaluation of the progress and effectiveness of projects funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) has become increasingly important. Project staff, participants, local stakeholders, and decisionmakers need to know how funded projects are contributing to knowledge and understanding of mathematics, science, and technology. To do so, some simple but critical questions must be addressed:

* What are we finding out about teaching and learning?
* How can we apply our new knowledge?
* Where are the dead ends?
* What are the next steps?

Although there are many excellent textbooks, manuals, and guides dealing with evaluation, few are geared to the needs of the EHR grantee who may be an experienced researcher but a novice evaluator. One of the ways that EHR seeks to fill this gap is by the publication of what have been called "user-friendly" handbooks for project evaluation.

The first publication, User-Friendly Handbook for Project Evaluation: Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education, issued in 1993, describes the types of evaluations principal investigators/project directors (PIs/PDs) may be called upon to perform over the lifetime of a project. It also describes in some detail the evaluation process, which includes the development of evaluation questions and the collection and analysis of appropriate data to provide answers to these questions. Although this first handbook discussed both qualitative and quantitative methods, it covered techniques that produce numbers (quantitative data) in greater detail. This approach was chosen because decisionmakers usually demand quantitative (statistically documented) evidence of results. Indicators that are often selected to document outcomes include percentage of targeted populations participating in mathematics and science courses, test scores, and percentage of targeted populations selecting careers in the mathematics and science fields.

The current handbook, User-Friendly Guide to Mixed Method Evaluations, has been published in August 1997 and builds on the first but seeks to introduce a broader perspective. It was initiated because of the recognition that by focusing primarily on quantitative techniques, evaluators may miss important parts of a story. Experienced evaluators have found that most often the best results are achieved through the use of mixed method evaluations, which combine quantitative and qualitative techniques. Because the earlier handbook did not include an indepth discussion of the collection and analysis of qualitative data, this handbook was initiated to provide more information on qualitative techniques and discuss how they can be combined effectively with quantitative measures.

Like the earlier publication, this handbook is aimed at users who need practical rather than technically sophisticated advice about evaluation methodology. The main objective is to make PIs and PDs "evaluation smart" and to provide the knowledge needed for planning and managing useful evaluations.