Category Archives: Contexts and content:

The Rise and Risk of Evidence

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Katherine Hay

Our guest blogger this week is Katherine Hay, a senior member of the Evaluation Unit of the International Centre for Development Research. Based in New Delhi, India, she is an expert on the role of evaluation in development in South Asia. … Continue reading →

Posted in Appropriate inference, Causal inference, Causal inference strategies, Development | Tagged , | 4 Comments

The Friday Funny: Things Not To Say at a Job Interview

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Patricia Rogers & Jane Davidson

Personnel evaluation is always a rich source of evaluation humor – and often with interesting parallel implications for program, policy and project evaluation. Here’s a classic that’s done the rounds on the Internet; we found this one at Pinetree.com’s inbox … Continue reading →

Posted in Friday Funnies, Personnel evaluation | Tagged | Leave a comment

Simple, complicated and complex perspectives on accountability and Three Cups of Tea controversy

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Patricia Rogers

I’m hopeful that the current controversy over Greg Mortenson’s book ‘Three Cups of Tea’ and the operations of the related NGO ‘Central Asia Institute’ (detailed in John Krakauer’s book Three Cups of Deceit and a 60 minutes story)  will lead … Continue reading →

Posted in Appropriate reporting, Development, Value for money | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

The risks of using choropleth maps

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Patricia Rogers

Choropleth maps use existing spatial units (such as census blocks, cities, countries) to map statistical data. They are commonly used to map census data, which is where I was introduced to them in the 1980s. One of the risks of … Continue reading →

Posted in Appropriate reporting, Environment and natural resources, Mapping | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Update on ‘alpine whaling’ – scientific grazing

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Patricia Rogers

We recently reported on some curious developments in evidence-based policy in the state of Victoria in Australia, where the newly-elected State Government had overturned previous policy to keep cattle out of alpine national parks, arguing there was insufficient evidence to … Continue reading →

Posted in Adequate scope, Appropriate reporting, Government programs | Tagged , | Leave a comment