Planning and evaluation of disability projects

Ensuring the participation in disability projects of the most vulnerable in society, including disabled people, women, and children presents many challenges. Much has been written in recent years about increasing participation and techniques such as participatory rural appraisal (PRA) have been developed.

How do you measure the effect of a project on a community? This too is a challenge for those managing disability projects. Also, how are lessons learned from a project’s results and how can experiences be used to develop better approaches in future?

This key list highlights resources on areas such as planning, evaluating, measuring outcomes, measuring impact and using participatory methods. We welcome your suggestions: please send comments or suggested additions to sourceassistant@hi-uk.org.

Selected resources

Inclusive project cycle management training

CHRISTOFFEL BLINDENMISSION (CBM)
December 2012

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"Inclusive Project Cycle Management (IPCM) training package has been developed for CBM staff and Partner Organisations worldwide

 

The Trainers’ Manual will guide CBM trainers. It contains the curriculum for the course and training resources for trainers to help them deliver the course. The training will be successful if the trainers make sufficient planning time to prepare in advance and to respond to partners training needs. Different contexts and different partners may require different emphasis on areas that may be a challenge. This training material is not suggested as a prescriptive manual but as a suggested framework that can be added to and deepened as required. This means adapting the course to the local context and training needs and competencies of partners. In particular, it would be good to supplement or replace case studies included in the course with local case studies (refer Handout 8) and to have participants draw on their own examples

 

In addition to the Trainers’ Manual, there are also Participant Folders. There is a small amount of information to be included in the folders at the beginning. Participants will receive extra course materials during the three days to complete their folders (Handouts)


The objective of the training is to promote inclusion in CBM’s work and the work of CBM’s partners. It focuses on two particular aspects of inclusion – how to ensure people with disabilities and both women and men participate in and benefit from development activities"

Programming and evaluation for psychosocial programmes

AGER, Alastair
1999

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Resources supporting the planning and implementation of humanitarian and development assistance projects are relevant for the planning of psychosocial programmes. The principles are described in this short paper and these are addresses two questions: "What are we seeking to achieve?" and "What is the best way of going about this?". Logical framework analysis is applied to psychosocial programmes, including indicators of success. The paper shows that evaluation is best addressed at the planning stage. With commitment, imagination and foresight many of the principles outlined can be addressed in the most complex circumstances.There is a focus on social aspects, children and participation

The project cycle : a teaching module

MOYNIHAN, Maeve
et al
2003

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The manual provides 15 to 16 hours of direct teaching on the project cycle, which involves a number of events that bring the NGO back to where it began so that it can start the cycle again. It enables trainees to locate planning, implementation and evaluation in the project cycle, and list what is needed to make a good plan: good objectives, good information, good colleagues, community involvement, transparency, a knowledge of best practice, action plans, financing and monitoring.
It describes why and how the community should be involved throughout; explains why planning includes action plans; defines monitoring and gives a couple of examples; defines evaluation; names and explains some criteria for evaluation

Toolkits : a practical guide to monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment

GOSLING, Louisa
EDWARDS, Mike
2003

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This field-tested toolkit has been designed to measure the extent to which programmes make a difference. The 2003 edition of Toolkits has been extended with contributions from SCF and beyond. It describes participatory methodologies, such as mapping and focus groups. It is divided into three sections: underlying principles, practical questions and tools. This new edition brings these up to date and discusses the implications of adopting a human rights approach to development and the increased emphasis on partnership. There are new chapters on impact assessment, monitoring and evaluating advocacy, as well as two new tools - one for improving planning, evaluation, and impact assessment and one for stakeholder analysis

Charities Evaluation Services website

CHARITIES EVALUATION SERVICES (CES)

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Improving Quality is the quality scheme written to be used both as a self assessment tool as well as external assessment. Its focus is on elements that all not for profit organisations need. Although written to target small organisations, it is equally applicable to larger ones.

IQ addresses all the key areas of organisational life in 4 elements

Accountable – Good Governance, Leadership and management
Welcoming – Involving Service users, managing and developing Staff and Volunteers, Equality and Diversity and working with others
Effective – refers to the services that an organisations provides and the planning, delivery, monitoring and evaluation that the organisations carries out
Sustainable – How the organisation manages, risk, money and the resources to make service delivery happen

Getting better all the time! A self-help guide to evaluation

BRADLEY, Alice
2001

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This comprehensive manual has been written for senior staff and managers who are responsible for leading others through the evaluation process. It will be of interest to people involved in small or large-scale evaluation of services, projects or programmes. It is intended both as a 'read alone' manual and as a group training text

Lessons learned workshop : a review of assistance programs for war wounded and other persons with disabilities living in mine-affected countries

HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL
2004

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This review is the result of a workshop in May 2004 which brought together rehabilitation specialists from Africa, Asia, Europe and Central America to review assistance programmes for war wounded and persons who are living in landmine-affected countries. Lessons learned regarding emergency and continuing medical care, physical rehabilitation, psycho-social support, economic integration, capacity-building and sustainability, access to services, data collection, and coordination are presented in some detail, with reference to achieving the aims outlined in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines' Guidelines for the care and rehabilitation of survivors (1999)

Results-orientated monitoring and evaluation : a handbook for programme managers

UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (UNDP). Office of Evaluation and Strategic Planning (OESP)
1997

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This handbook was written to support the monitoring and evaluation activities of UNDP. It presents a framework that aims to: focus on results-orientated monitoring and evaluation for decision-making, accountability, and learning, present an integrated approach to the two functions, reinforce links to other stages of the project, to feed information back into it, present methodological innovations, introduce simplified and streamlined procedures

The Snyder evaluation process : an overview

DICK, Bob
1997

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This document briefly describes a flexible process which can be used to evaluate an activity (perhaps a programme or project) or a unit (for example an organisation or team). The process is participative, seeking to involve all of the stakeholders or their representatives in the process, ideally as co-evaluators. It is conducted using the methods of action research, for the combination of rigour and flexibility they allow. It uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative data; and encourages critical reflection by all stakeholders within a systematic but flexible process

A manual for CBR planners

THOMAS, Maya
THOMAS, M J
Eds
2003

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This manual for community-based rehabilitation planners has 13 sections and contains a very useful overview of the history of CBR with valuable introductory reading for newcomers to the field. The subsequent six sections cover planning, needs assessment and include suggestions of how to understand local communities and encourage community participation in CBR programmes. The final six sections are concerned with programme management issues; for example, as organising self-help groups, training personnel for CBR, and the sustainability of projects including evaluation and management of change

Manual for the planning, organising and implementation of an awareness building campaign (ABC) for disabled persons' organisations

SOUTHERN AFRICA FEDERATION OF THE DISABLED (SAFOD)
et al
2002

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This manual is based on the experiences with planning, organisation, implementation and evaluation of the awareness building campaign (ABC) in Malawi in 1999-2001, which was jointly carried out by the Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD), the Federation of Disability Organisations of Malawi (FEDOMA) and the Federation of Disability Organisations of Norway (FFO)