ISSN 2027-1238
E-Newsletter No. 3
April 2009

An influential book examining the role of evaluation in capacity development efforts and its potential to enhance organizational performance is now available in Spanish. In Evaluating Capacity Development: Experiences from Research and Development Organizations around the World, managers and evaluators from 12 national and international organizations show how the evaluation of a capacity development effort can strengthen both the particular capacity development effort and an entire organization.

Drawing from their experiences carrying out evaluation studies in Bangladesh, Cuba, Ghana, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Vietnam, the authors address issues such as "Moving beyond donor-recipient relationships" and "Unintended consequences of evaluation". By providing a conceptual framework for understanding constraints to organizational capacity and outlining applicable methods for utilizing evaluation processes to overcome these challenges, the book has proven a valuable resource to the R&D community since its original English publication in 2003.

Funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the technical input of CIAT and the Programme for Strengthening the Regional Capacity for Monitoring and Evaluation of IFAD's Rural Poverty-Alleviation Projects in Latin America and the Caribbean (PREVAL) have extended the book's utility to Spanish-speaking organizations.

Known by its Spanish title: Evaluación del Desarrollo de Capacidades: Experiencias de Organizaciones de Investigación y Desarrollo Alrededor del Mundo, the book is available for download in full text or by sections on the CIAT website.

English full text available for download on the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) websites.

Contact:
Douglas Horton, d.horton@mac.com