Can CSOs Evaluative Practices Take the Form of Mutual Learning?

Mussetto, Gloria

In 2023, the OECD defined evaluation in international development cooperation as a process of determining the value or significance of an intervention by analysing the following 6 criteria: relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.

The literature highlights two main dimensions of evaluation: (1) accountability and (2) learning. The first one responds to the need to account for what has been done and how resources have been used; the second promotes reflexivity, aimed at understanding the successes and failures of an intervention.

The theme of learning is also found in the concept of mutual learning (ML), which has emerged in the field of development cooperation since the 2000s. Recent research has theoretically defined ML and developed a construct to detect its presence in social reality.

This contribution explores the relationship between evaluation and ML, seeking to answer the following question: whether and how the evaluation practices of CSOs active in the field of development cooperation can take the form of ML, i.e. an exchange of resources that leads to mutual learning processes between the various stakeholders.

Through semi-structured interviews with professionals involved in project evaluation in some Italian CSOs, the most common evaluation practices will be identified, and an attempt will be made to detect the possible presence of ML in them. Finally, based on the data collected, an effort will be made to construct a summary ML index.

Exploring the relationship between evaluation practices and ML can enable the international development cooperation to design increasingly democratic and sustainable initiatives to contribute to social justice in countries of the Global South.