Project Description
Democracy International conducted a Mid-Term Performance Evaluation of USAID’s Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability (SDGAP) Activity in Sri Lanka. SDGAP aimed to increase effective and accountable democratic governance, focusing on activities that strengthen core democratic governance, public administration, and legislative functions linked to public accountability systems and policy reform. Through SDGAP, USAID supported key actors within the Sri Lankan public accountability space including the Parliament, government ministries, commissions, and agencies as well as think tanks, research organizations, civil society, and the media. To conduct this evaluation, DI employed a mixed-methods utilization-focused evaluation approach which draws elements from the Outcome Mapping evaluation approach. DI’s utilization-focused evaluation approach engaged the primary intended users of the evaluation from the start, thereby increasing the likelihood that evaluation results will be appropriate, validated, and used. DI’s approach facilitated learning and allowed USAID to use evaluation findings to make any necessary adjustments and course corrections.
DI’s evaluation provided USAID with information to inform programmatic decisions on, and approaches to, continued democratic governance support within Sri Lanka’s dynamic political environment. DI examined SDGAP’s effectiveness in achieving its results thus far and the likelihood that the outcomes will be sustainable after the life of the project. DI’s evaluation design allowed the team to answer in the most rigorous way not only whether or not the project has been effective and is expected to be sustainable, but why. Photo credit: Renu Warnasuriya, licensed under CC BY 2.0, cropped from original.
Photo credit: Renu Warnasuriya, licensed under CC BY 2.0, cropped from original.