This report is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents of this presentation are the sole responsibility of DEPA-MERL consortium and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

The Developmental Evaluation Pilot Activity (DEPA-MERL) under the U.S. Global Development Lab’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning innovations (MERLIN) program at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is testing the effectiveness of developmental evaluation in the USAID context. From November 2016 to March 2018, DEPA-MERL conducted a developmental evaluation with Family Care First (FCF) in Cambodia, in service of FCF’s goal of increasing the number of children living in safe, nurturing family-based care. The initiative is managed by an Integrating Partner organization and previously, also a Backbone organization. The DEPA-MERL consortium, consists of: Social Impact (prime awardee), Search for Common Ground (henceforth called Search), and the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI).

WDI (henceforth called the team) used a mixed-methods approach to understand the effectiveness of the developmental evaluation approach, how it can be improved in practice, and what value it provides for its stakeholders within the USAID context.i Table 1 lists the research questions and the associated data collection approach used to answer each question. In total, the team conducted over 46 hours of interviews and analyzed 192 pages of qualitative data, including 96 pages of monthly reflection interview data, 91 pages of substantiation interview data, and approximately five pages of survey data. To DEPA-MERL’s knowledge, research of this kind – a systematic evaluation of developmental evaluation – has only been conducted in a handful of other instances.