A Guide for performance evaluation process for internationally funded community development projects in Sri Lanka

Abstract

A Guide for Performance Evaluation Process for Internationally Funded Community Development Projects in Sri Lanka In the current world, the development efforts are more practised by Community Development (CD) projects to enhance the human living condition while fulfilling the required gaps in all aspects of living among them. Due to the unique nature of CD projects and their intangible, less visible and qualitative objectives raise a special challenge when managing the implementation process as well as the performance evaluation process. CD projects concern the soft issues in the human society; therefore, the performance evaluation is affected by several impact areas. Thus, this research was aimed at developing a guide for conducting a performance evaluation process for CD projects implemented by Non- Government Organisations (NGOs) in Sri Lanka to streamline the process. As identified in literature review survey, four major impact areas and five major stages of performance evaluation process were identified. Five CD projects were selected as case studies and the interviews are conducted as the mode of data collection. The research has identified the existing strategies applied by NGOs to performance evaluations and strategies to prevent the impacts areas. Accordingly, the research has developed a guide with proposed strategies for five major stages; evaluation possibility of project works, creating the evaluation plan, implementing the evaluation plan, analysing and interpreting data and finally, communicating the evaluation results.