Evaluation with the Smart Toolkit

The launch on November 28 of the Smart Toolkit (5,15 MB) is the result of a collaboration between the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) and The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in order to address the issue of how development organisations respond to the needs of their stakeholders and whether they have adequate capacity to change should the need arise. This Smart Toolkit is for organisations interested in learning how to improve their project management practices as well as develop a culture of evaluation.

Learning
Learning is the focus of the Toolkit; a learning that comes from self-assessment. Learning in the context of the Toolkit means that within organisations there is commitment on the part of management to support and empower staff and a willingness on the part of staff to positively respond to this culture of change. Practically, the Toolkit will provide background information on the evaluation of information products and services; explain possible pitfalls in carrying out evaluations and show how external factors can play a critical role when carrying out any evaluation. It will not tell you how to do your evaluation, but acts solely as a good guide for positive learning and development.  
 
There are many reasons why the Smart Toolkit was developed. Firstly, the literature which could act as a guide to the evaluation of information products and services is highly dispersed and inaccessible for a practitioner audience or those requiring self-help. Secondly, evaluation is seen as intimidating because there is often no evaluation culture or related evaluation expertise on which to build. Although these challenges are particularly applicable to information professionals in a resource poor or isolated situation, they are also valid for most information professionals working in the field of information for development. The ability to undertake an evaluation in an analytical and systematic manner strengthens the professional capacity of the information practitioner and would, logically, lead to professional empowerment and the improved management of information services in organisations. Another reason to develop the Smart Toolkit is that the evaluation of information products and services proved to be very difficult as the information itself is intangible.

To learn and self-evaluation
Learning and self-evaluation are core beliefs behind IICD’s work as an ICT4Development  organisation. It was critical to IICD’s involvement as a key partner that self-evaluation was also to become a core component of the Toolkit. Therefore IICD’s monitoring & evaluation specialist was sent in person to co-operate on the development of the Toolkit. IICD also sponsored involvement from information practitioners from the south in order to put their valuable experiences onto paper, while tapping into the knowledge of experts in the field of evaluation and information. The use of additional information from the Web sources was also put forward so as to enhance the material being produced.

Ultimately, this meant that the Toolkit developed from being one targeted for consultants in the North and the South to one that could practically assist development organisations interested in learning how to improve their project management practices as well as develop a culture of evaluation. It presents information practitioners with a simple ‘how to’ guide to self-evaluate their products and services with the view to improving decision-making management capacities through learning and action.

Partnerships
The partnership between IICD, CTA and KIT itself has also undergone a process of learning. IICD’s guiding principle is one that encourages partnerships, which was clearly evident in this project. The process of developing and writing this final Toolkit was a real collaboration of three development organisations that encouraged participation from a wide development audience.
The Toolkit is also for anyone interested in good project management such as managers and funding agencies, as well as other stakeholders who play an active role in the life of the information product or service. The Toolkit particularly lends itself to the non-experts in evaluation, particularly those at the grassroots level, because of its style and the type of information provided. It will add significantly to the limited body of literature in the information field, stimulating dialogue and capacity-building efforts towards developing good project management practices, particularly at the grassroots level and promote the use of evaluation as a capacity-building tool.

Jac Stienen, Managing Director of IICD also recognises the significance of the Toolkit. “This Smart Toolkit clearly addresses the need that development organisations experience in terms of having clear and easy-to-use guidelines for self-evaluation and learning. Key information from practitioners is now encompassed in one document that is freely available and contributes greatly to IICD’s ideology of self-evaluation.”