How can impact evaluations actually be helpful? These top tips will save development professionals time, energy and money. International development can be messy – with uncertain, complex settings, and multiple partners with different interests, goals and capacities. At the same time, we are under increasing pressure to demonstrate impact. We have to show that our projects have made a real change in people’s lives and that donor or taxpayer money hasn’t been wasted. But impact evaluations, which are often seen as a solution to this, aren’t always used. And in some cases they are unhelpful. So how can we improve the quality of impact evaluations, so that they produce results that are useful? This is where evaluability assessments come in. By asking whether we should evaluate a project – and if so, when and how – these assessments can improve the quality of impact evaluations. Here are five other reasons to assess evaluability before starting an impact evaluation.

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