The Evolution of Knowledge on Evaluation Capacity

The evaluation community has been focused on evaluation capacity for over twenty years. Numerous studies have been conducted in this area, and our understanding of individual and organizational evaluation capacity continues to evolve. One of our key projects, an integrative review of the literature on evaluation capacity, has resulted in the publication of several articles.

This integrative review, which covered research articles published between 2000 and 2019 in journals dedicated to evaluation, allowed us to determine that most published articles focused on providing a case example of an evaluation capacity building intervention (n=73) or presenting the results of a research project focusing on evaluation capacity or ECB (n=43). Half of the case examples did not include a theory of change or evaluation of the intervention, while most of the studies used an exploratory or descriptive design.