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Evaluation of International Programs and Projects
(IRP 633-001)
(PPA 633-001)
The course addresses the issue of how to evaluate the impact of programs and projects undertaken by international public and non-governmental organizations. This includes programs of development cooperation and humanitarian assistance as well as the regular programs of organizations dealing with such diverse functions as regime creation, monitoring of human rights, trade regulation and elimination of weapons of mass destruction.
Evaluation of these programs is particularly complex, since the organizations typically have only an indirect effect, since they must work with and through sovereign governments and other organizations. The increasing importance of these programs for national officials as well as international managers has increased the need to have staff well trained in evaluation under these conditions. For this reason it is particularly relevant for mid-career officials.
After a short introduction to basic concepts used in all evaluations, the course moves to conceptual material on the qualitative differences between international programs and national programs in terms of context. It shows how often vague objectives can be made measurable. It examines the main methodological tools used in the evaluation of international programs and presents a series of case studies of different types of evaluations: of a World Bank project, a development project implemented by a non-governmental organization, a humanitarian assistance program, a program to support intergovernmental decision-making, and a program to verify the elimination of a weapon of mass destruction.
The course can be preceded by International Public and NGO Management, which deals with strategic planning in the international public sector.
See a video introduction (in Quicktime) (in RealMedia)
For each session, participants will be given readings, will read a lecture on the subject and prepare a brief exercise based on a simulation of an evaluation that will continue for most of the course.. Then, they will participate in either an in-person discussion or an on-line chat with the professor focusing on the main questions raised in the readings and lecture, as well in the simulation. The course project will be to design an evaluation of an international program or project, or a national project supported by an international input, that the participant knows personally.
There are ample resources on the Internet and there is no textbook for the course. Instead, the evaluation training material prepared by the different organizations will be used.
The course is offered by John Mathiason, Adjunct Professor of International Relations at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University and Program Manager for International Education and Distance Learning of the Executive Educations Programs. He is also the Managing Director of Associates for International Management Services, an international management consulting firm and, in addition to implementing evaluations of United Nations programs and development projects of NGOs in developing countries, he has developed a self-evaluation method for the International Atomic Energy Agency for use by both Agency managers and by national counterparts and has worked with the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services on performance monitoring and self-evaluation and with UNDP on impact evaluation. He was a career staff member of the United Nations Secretariat over a period of 30 years who started his career as an expert in evaluation of social aspects of agrarian reform, served as a field administrator for UNDP and, in addition to other posts, was involved in program planning and evaluation. He has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For questions about the course, contact the Professor at jrmathia@maxwell.syr.edu
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Current as of September 2, 2005
John R. Mathiason.
Copyright 2003, 2004, 2005 John R. Mathiason. All rights reserved.
Revised:
September 2, 2005