Aid Effectiveness?

An incisive article about the part donors play in development effectiveness - just click on the link at the end of this paragraph. Owen Barder shows that government donors have fulfilled only one of the promise they made to increase aid effectiveness. Good reading! In my view, monitoring systems and evaluations should always factor in the donor's role. Their action - or non-action - may have just as much (or even more) weight than anything that happens "on the ground".
What Happens When Donors Fail to Meet Their Commitments? | Owen Barder | Global Development: Views from the Center

Good reading on "results-based" approaches vs. complexity

Highly commendable: an incisive article on results-based approaches in development. The author, Harry Jones, explains how ill-conceived application of "results-based management" tools may yield an overly simplistic picture of reality. Unwanted "side effects" are likely to occur. Click on the link to read the full article:
Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Blog : Managing better for results, not just measuring them better: lessons on complexity for the results agenda

Monitoring on Women's Rights

A few days ago I shared a link to AWID's recent publications on monitoring and evaluation for women's rights. To tell from the enthusiastic response it received, it fills a gap. You can find the publication by clicking on its title: Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation for Women's Rights: Thirteen Insights for Women's Organisations.  It is part of an eminently legible and commendable series written by Srilatha Batliwala and Alexandra Pittman. They have also published Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation for Women's Rights: Twelve Insights for Donors and a broader critique of monitoring and evaluation in development co-operation on women's rights, Capturing Change in Women's Realities.