Evaluation experience up to 2000
John started his evaluation work with a review of RedR's training programme in 1998. John brought his own field experience and his emergency management training experience to that evaluation. This set the patten for John's evaluations in that he brings lots of operational experience to the evaluations, so that the yardstick used is not what is theoretically possible in an ideal world, but what can realistically be achieved in emergency conditions.
John then carried out several evaluations as an evaluation team member in specialist areas, and as a solo evaluator. John gradually moved from quantitative methods (used for the RedR evaluation in 1998) to more qualitative methods, particularly key informant interviews. John learned a great deal from the more experienced evaluators that he worked with during this period.
2000: Team leader for NORAD evaluation of NPA's mine action programme in Angola. Report: Review of the Norwegian Peoples Aid Mine Action Programme in Angola: Final Report , Channel Research: Brussels, 2000, (with S. Brown and E. Brusset).
2000: Member of core team for large-scale DEC evaluation of Kosovo Emergency in Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia. Report: Independent Evaluation of Expenditure of DEC Kosovo Appeal Funds : Phases I and II, April 1999-January 2000, Volumes I, II & III London: Disasters Emergency Committee, 2000. (With Peter Wiles as team leader, and Mark Bradbury, Margie Buchanan-Smith, Steve Collins, Alistair Hallam, Nicola Norman, Ana Prodanovic, Jane Shackman, and Fiona Watson as fellow team members.)
Images from the Kosovo evaluation.
This new school toilet was not accessible for disabled children. It was built by an agency that was also retrofitting schools with disabled accessible toilets at huge cost. This illustrated the problems of agencies maintaining coherence in their programmes in Kosovo.
As part of the renovation of this school, an environmentally conscious NGO replaced the asbestos cement school roof with an asbestos free one. Unfortunately their contractor just dumped the broken roofing sheets in the school yard, where there were a far bigger hazard than on the roof. Agencies need to monitor their projects for health and safety issues.
This widow got a new toilet in her house as she had accommodated refugees from Kosovo. She was delighted with the toilet except for one thing. There was no water point for anal cleansing - the agency had failed to ask her what she wanted.
This poorly constructed spring protection works has failed. The quality of NGO work was a problem in the Kosovo response.
2000: Desk review of county security plans and writing a security training manual for IRC.
1999: Evaluating the European Commission's Programme in Mozambique. Evaluation of the rehabilitation programme in Mozambique. Moreton-in-Marsh:APT consulting, 1999. (With Alistair Hallam as team leader, and Clair Leloup and Josefa Langa as fellow team members.)
1998: Evaluating Oxfam's Logar water project in Afghanistan and developing guidelines for Oxfam on their involvement with urban water supplies.
1999: Preparation in Brussels for ECHO's Burundi evaluation. (Fieldwork was cancelled due to a security incident in Burundi).
1999: Writing and presenting strategy paper on emergencies for Cordaid.
1999 Reviewing USAID synthesis study of Emergencies.
1999: Desk review of Kosovo shelter for Tearfund.
1998: Evaluating Dutch financed UNICEF Water Supply projects in Angola.
1998: Evaluating USAID relief assistance in Mozambique to '95. Report: Providing Emergency Aid to Mozambique: USAID Impact Evaluation. Washington: USAID., 1999. (with Joseph Lieberson as team leader, and fellow team members Elizabeth Adelski and Thomas O'Keefe).
1998: Evaluation of the RedR training programme in the UK.