Documenting qualitative comparative analysis and process tracing

I am delighted to announce that I have started a dedicated blog on Wolfgang Stuppert's and my work on a DFID-commissioned review of evaluations of interventions related to violence against women and girls. We will use qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and process tracing to examine the evaluation approaches and methods used in up to 100 evaluations completed since 2008. 

Since QCA and process tracing are still relatively new in evaluation, we have decided to document our work on the new blog www.evawreview.de, which is supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) We will post the main steps of our work, every few weeks. Just like this blog here, it includes a "follow by e-mail" function, if you wish to be alerted when new posts come up.

Exciting new resource pack for social movements

BRIDGE has published a rich multi-media resource pack on gender and social movements. Find the full set on http://socialmovements.bridge.ids.ac.uk/, a beautifully designed, dedicated website. I particularly recommend the overview report and, for busy people, the brief bulletin that summarises key points.

WANTED: evaluation reports and contacts

The UK Department for International Development (DFID) has commissioned a review of evaluation approaches and methods for violence against women and girls (VAWG) interventions in development and humanitarian contexts ('the Review').  The Review will provide recommendations as to how evaluations in this complex field can be designed and implemented to yield maximum use. It will use qualitative comparative analysis and process tracing to detect the drivers of effective evaluations of VAWG interventions, and describe good practice. Review findings will be widely disseminated to stakeholders and made publically available.

The Review team, led by international consultants Michaela Raab and Wolf Stuppert, plans to analyse up to 100 evaluations. Since relatively few evaluations have been published, we need your support in identifying and sharing those that you are aware of – including unpublished evaluations. The evaluation reports will be read by the Review team only, so please do not hesitate to share evaluations even if you have doubts about their quality or about their findings. Findings will be presented in an aggregated form that will prevent readers from identifying specific evaluations.

If you have access to evaluation reports that meet the criteria outlined below, we would be grateful if you could forward them to this address. The criteria are:

• Published and unpublished evaluations of development or humanitarian programmes that (i) either focus on preventing or responding to any form of violence against women and girls (VAWG), (ii) or include a VAWG component as part of a wider initiative (for example, on human rights, humanitarian protection, peace building, post-conflict reconstruction or HIV/AIDS)
• Evaluations that have been completed between January 2008 and October 2013
• Report in English.

Furthermore, we would be grateful for your identifying persons the review team could interview to find out about their experience with VAWG-related evaluations. You are kindly requested to provide the name and contact details (e-mail address and/ or phone number) of

• Evaluation commissioners (for example, programme officers who have commissioned VAWG-related evaluations)
• Evaluators (both external consultants and internal evaluators who have carried out VAWG-related evaluations
• Leading members of VAWG-related initiatives or organisations 

The Review report will individually credit everyone who contributes evaluation reports and data (unless you wish not to be mentioned). We would be grateful if you could send us your response by 20 October. In addition, you are encouraged to forward this message to others who may have access to VAWG-related evaluations and professionals in the field. 

We are looking forward to learning from the evaluations you will share!