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

Abstract

In today’s world, many development efforts are implemented as Community Development (CD) projects. Their unique nature and qualitative objectives raise a special challenge in performance evaluation as performance evaluation of CD projects is affected by several factors. Thus, this research was aimed at developing a guide for performance evaluation of CD projects implemented by Non- Government Organizations (NGOs) in Sri Lanka to streamline the process. As identified in literature review, four major impact areas from in and out of the CD project environment and five major stages of performance evaluation process were identified. Five CD projects were selected as case studies and interviews were conducted to gather data. The research identified existing and proposed strategies applied by NGOs. According to the findings, majority of CD projects have not practiced all identified stages by giving the same weight for each of them. The identification of lessons learnt and best fit practices are important factors, while responsible officers should carefully select representative stakeholder groups to share the evaluation findings in different ways.