Chapter 4: Adaptation of Assumptions Based Evaluation to Deal With Complexity, Values and Different Perspectives

To unravel the tangle of complexity, values and cultural responsiveness it is useful to identify key assumptions which underlie the elements of the tangle. For this purpose, it is useful to consider an adaptation of the assumptions-based evaluation (ABE) approach. This chapter shows how ABE can help evaluators (as well as evaluation commissioners and managers) to explore systematically the key assumptions, implicit and/or explicit, in the evaluation of policies, programs and projects. It is a multi-disciplinary approach, combining insights from different disciplines. Though this framework is aimed at the evaluation of development interventions, it may also be applied to humanitarian interventions. ABE allows the evaluator (and those that review evaluations) to explore systematically a set of key assumptions that are frequently implicit in development evaluation, and which cover six crucial dimensions: Incentives, Capacities, Adoption, Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainability. This chapter shows that the approach can deal with complexity, values and cultural responsiveness. The adaptation of ABE provides evaluators with a tool they can use to evaluate interventions that are becoming increasingly complex in their design (for example, when they include several of the “Sustainable Development Goals,”) and when different stakeholders’ perspectives and values need to be taken into account.