Many things can be communicated through dialogue, including information, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs and personal experiences. More recently, dialogues have been used in focus group research and in program evaluations. Despite the increasing prevalence of dialogue in research and evaluation, much is still unknown about dialogue, especially how dialogue emerges and occurs within a group setting. The aim of the current study was to describe and identify the various factors involved in a dialogue, examine the relationships among these factors, and conceptualize the process of dialogue within a multi-stakeholder participatory evaluation. A qualitative analysis of three focus groups, each comprised of eight to ten participants, yielded several findings. First, several factors were found to help facilitate the interactions between multiple stakeholders in dialogue, including the development of common ground and specific contributions made by participants. Secondly, communication within these multiple stakeholder groups was found to alternate between two individuals, a dyadic exchange, or between multiple participants, a complex exchange. Thirdly, the moderator and participants were found to take on each other roles. Finally, from these conversations, a model was developed to illustrate the progression of a dialogue in these groups. These results have many implications for program evaluators, focus group leaders, and other practitioners in the field.

Many things can be communicated through dialogue, including information, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs and personal experiences. More recently, dialogues have been used in focus group research and in program evaluations. Despite the increasing prevalence of dialogue in research and evaluation, much is still unknown about dialogue, especially how dialogue emerges and occurs within a group setting. The aim of the current study was to describe and identify the various factors involved in a dialogue, examine the relationships among these factors, and conceptualize the process of dialogue within a multi-stakeholder participatory evaluation. A qualitative analysis of three focus groups, each comprised of eight to ten participants, yielded several findings. First, several factors were found to help facilitate the interactions between multiple stakeholders in dialogue, including the development of common ground and specific contributions made by participants. Secondly, communication within these multiple stakeholder groups was found to alternate between two individuals, a dyadic exchange, or between multiple participants, a complex exchange. Thirdly, the moderator and participants were found to take on each other roles. Finally, from these conversations, a model was developed to illustrate the progression of a dialogue in these groups. These results have many implications for program evaluators, focus group leaders, and other practitioners in the field.

Many things can be communicated through dialogue, including information, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs and personal experiences. More recently, dialogues have been used in focus group research and in program evaluations. Despite the increasing prevalence of dialogue in research and evaluation, much is still unknown about dialogue, especially how dialogue emerges and occurs within a group setting. The aim of the current study was to describe and identify the various factors involved in a dialogue, examine the relationships among these factors, and conceptualize the process of dialogue within a multi-stakeholder participatory evaluation. A qualitative analysis of three focus groups, each comprised of eight to ten participants, yielded several findings. First, several factors were found to help facilitate the interactions between multiple stakeholders in dialogue, including the development of common ground and specific contributions made by participants. Secondly, communication within these multiple stakeholder groups was found to alternate between two individuals, a dyadic exchange, or between multiple participants, a complex exchange. Thirdly, the moderator and participants were found to take on each other roles. Finally, from these conversations, a model was developed to illustrate the progression of a dialogue in these groups. These results have many implications for program evaluators, focus group leaders, and other practitioners in the field.

Many things can be communicated through dialogue, including information, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs and personal experiences. More recently, dialogues have been used in focus group research and in program evaluations. Despite the increasing prevalence of dialogue in research and evaluation, much is still unknown about dialogue, especially how dialogue emerges and occurs within a group setting. The aim of the current study was to describe and identify the various factors involved in a dialogue, examine the relationships among these factors, and conceptualize the process of dialogue within a multi-stakeholder participatory evaluation. A qualitative analysis of three focus groups, each comprised of eight to ten participants, yielded several findings. First, several factors were found to help facilitate the interactions between multiple stakeholders in dialogue, including the development of common ground and specific contributions made by participants. Secondly, communication within these multiple stakeholder groups was found to alternate between two individuals, a dyadic exchange, or between multiple participants, a complex exchange. Thirdly, the moderator and participants were found to take on each other roles. Finally, from these conversations, a model was developed to illustrate the progression of a dialogue in these groups. These results have many implications for program evaluators, focus group leaders, and other practitioners in the field.

This thesis presents an exploration of the operationalization of empowerment outcomes in research on transformative participatory evaluations, focusing on the context of international development evaluation. Covering a 15 year period from 1999 and 2014, through the examination of the empirical research literature, the study explores: 1) how empowerment outcomes are measured, 2) the extent to which these outcomes demonstrate empowerment principles, and 3) which factors and conditions appear to enable or detract from the attainment of these outcomes. I found that the current state of the empirical research on transformative participatory evaluation to be largely comprised of reflective case narratives that rely solely on scarcely documented qualitative methods. In general, transformative outcomes do tend to mirror empowerment principles such as ownership, inclusion, democracy, and social justice. Finally, I found that various factors and conditions are critical to the reported attainment of transformative outcomes, particularly in relation to the local program context, for example, reforms in local and international governments that support increased local control over resources and governance, organizational structures and priorities that are congruent with empowerment objectives, and previous experience with empowerment processes. I also highlighted deficiencies in the current empirical research and call on the evaluation community to improve research on transformative approaches to participatory evaluation by suggesting critical areas for practice and writing. These include strengthening research designs and the use of meta-evaluations, further defining and clarifying key terms, and providing rich detail to facilitate further learning in this area.

Smallholding coffee farmers in Colombia face many obstacles to satisfy their needs due to a changed climate, a low coffee price and the lack of saved financial capital, that in turns creates a vulnerability to unpredictable events. An increased sustainability in those smallholding systems could therefore be crucial. The objectives of this study were to identify sustainability constraints experienced by smallholding coffee farmers among two cooperatives in Colombia. Likewise to explore the usefulness of FAO:s sustainability tool “Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA)” in the context of small-holding coffee systems. The study was conducted by the use of SAFA smallholder app and a participatory consultation, which evaluated four aspects of sustainability: environmental, social, economic and organizational governance, at male and female farmers from two coffee cooperatives. The results highlight that the farmers sustainability challenges were seen to be greatest due to climate and insects related losses and a low income. For them to meet these challenges, the financial capital was understood to be an obstacle. Obtaining external advice and help was often therefore seen as an opportunity to achieve those challenges. The SAFA tool gave in whole, a distinct illustration of the farm’s sustainability, while some parts of the configuration were perceived as not fully adapted to small farmers in developing countries.

Evaluation is an institutionalized practice in the western public sector with several applications and uses. At the same time, the effectiveness and use of evaluation is seldom demonstrated. This evaluation paradox is due to the fact that evaluation is constrained and shaped in relation to, among others, a political context.  In this dissertation, the political context is examined from the assumption that governance shapes evaluation. The aim is to analyze the relationship between governance and evaluation, by studying the translation (i.e. inter­pretation) of the European Union evaluation approach ongoing evaluation in Sweden, in the context of Cohesion policy 2007-2013, which in Sweden aims at reinforcing competitiveness and employment. The relation­ship is examined through documents and interviews on a European union and a Swedish level, and in the translation process in between. With key concepts such as steering logics, participatory evaluation and translation through framing, the formation of evaluation in relation to governance has been mapped. This is particularly interesting in Sweden where the approach puts forth ideals of learning and interaction that seem to depart from ongoing evaluation.    Results show that governance cannot fully explain the shape of evaluation. Instead, Swedish agencies and other implementing actors have promoted their evaluation norms while at the same time fulfilling the Swedish ministries’ learning frame. It is an actor perspective comple­menting the relation­­ship between gover­nance and evaluation previously presented. The evaluation approach in Sweden has been translated to a practical participatory evaluation approach within a larger group of collabora­tive inquiry. In conclusion, evaluation on both levels has functioned as a relatively un­critical supportive resource for decision making within predetermined boundaries, more connected to the object of evaluation than to a larger gover­nance context. Evaluation in Sweden is being separated from questions of accounta­bility, and participation in evaluation is for goal fulfillment rather than for critical examination of basic assumptions underpinning projects and programs. Results made possible through the lens of trans­lation show that the Swedish approach was made possible by the vague borders of the field of evaluation, the rhetorical use of evaluation terminology in translation, skilled institutional entrepreneurs using legitimizing strategies, and the framing by the Commission and state ministries that opens up for national variation.

<p>The findings in this case study are mainly based on material collected during a field trip with a fellow student to Laos in February-March 2005, which was sponsored by Sida through a Minor Field Study scholarship. The original interest was to study a political aid project (Governance and Administrative Reform Project Luang Prabang, GPAR LP) in a country like Laos with very complex preconditions such as one-party polity. In Laos my interest in evaluation of political aid grew mainly because I found out that the two donors in the project, Sida and the UNDP, had reached different conclusions in their respective evaluations of the project.</p><p>The main interest in this thesis has been to study how donors have evaluated a political aid project. The study shows that Sida and UNDP used, what in the literature usually is referred to as, Conventional evaluation as methodology when they conducted their evaluations of GPAR LP. The study also shows that the main reason for the different points of view that are expressed in the evaluations depend on a lack of dialogue and consensus, regarding for the project crucial concepts, rather than choice of evaluation methodology. This lack of mutual understanding between the agencies also has implications for the possibilities of the receiving part to create a better understanding and ownership of the project. If Sida and UNDP had chosen to do a mutual evaluation a lot could have been won in the form of time, money and less irritation between the involved parties.</p><p>The study finally shows that a different choice of evaluation methodology, in this case Participatory evaluation, could have had some positive effects mostly due to its supposedly democratic methods which are in line with the goals of the GPAR LP- project. One example here is the use of studies of the political context which would have been useful in this case. Another example is that the methodology could be useful to create a better understanding and ownership of the project through its participatory methods.</p>

Desertification, or land degradation in drylands, is a serious environmental problem in South Africa with tremendous socio-economic consequences. Land users' perspectives on land management practices and knowledge about their rangelands have been poorly represented in the discourse of land degradation in South Africa. We addressed this knowledge gap by examining three participatory methods to capture local knowledge and perspectives, as well as the relation between knowledge, attitude and practice status relative to three land management actions done by livestock farmers in the South African Kalahari. Photo elicitation captured a greater level of detail and new information compared to semi-structured interviews alone, while enhancing researchers' understanding of farmers' knowledge and perception in multiple ways. The photovoice group discussions led to farmers' engagement in reflective dialogues, which facilitated mutual learning among the farmers. We found that a high level of knowledge and positive attitude alone did not always result in actual full scale practice. Situational factors such as limited financial resources, inadequate farm infrastructure, farm size, and land tenure were given by farmers as constraints or challenges to their land management. We further examined how effective local knowledge and remotely sensed data were in assessing the veld condition in the Kalahari Duneveld. The farmers' assessment of veld condition corresponded to field measured grass, shrub and bare ground cover. The three vegetation metrics calculated from remotely sensed images (i.e., Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), and the tasseled cap greenness) all correlated poorly to the measured vegetation cover because of the excess spectral noise caused by the high iron oxide content in the Kalahari sand. Local perspectives and knowledge have potential to augment traditional ground-based rangeland assessment and contribute in the combat against desertification by offering a more holistic view of land management.

This research grew out of my concern that the dominant discourse about evaluation in the UK limits how it is defined, recognised and practised. It is a discourse which primarily values performance, accountability, results and value for money. In this research, ‘Evaluation that Empowers’ (EtE) aims to present a different discourse about evaluation that recognises other voices within the evaluation mix. This perspective embraces a broader definition of evaluation where: learning and development are a priority, and where the roles of evaluator and participants are collaborative and mutually recognised. The purpose of this research was to explore, develop, test and refine the EtE theoretical model against the real-life evaluation experience and practice in organisations. The EtE Model develops the notion of ‘evaluation-mindedness’ as the capacity for an organisation to create a deep and sustainable change in how it thinks about and embeds evaluation practices into its day to day actions. The research used a theory building approach over four distinct iterative studies. The literature review provided a guiding framework for future empirical studies; the EtE Model was applied and refined in the context of a single longitudinal case study; and further literature provided a critical review of the EtE Model in relation to current Evaluation Capacity Building literature. Finally, the EtE Model was developed into an evaluative conversation (The EtE Toolkit) and was field tested in two organisations. Findings suggest that organisations benefited from staff and volunteers engaging in critical discussion and self-assessment of their evaluation practices. For one organisation, the EtE conversation highlighted broader organisational issues, another organisation planned to adapt the EtE process to support self-evaluation across its service teams, and for one participant an emerging story of professional development was generated. This research has made an original contribution to the theory and practice of evaluation by developing a model and toolkit for engaging key evaluation stakeholders in a process of critical review of evaluation policy and practice or a meta-evaluation of evaluation. It has explored and developed the concept of evaluation-mindedness which can be applied to organisations, teams and individuals.