Evaluation design and impact assessment

2.1. Midterm. Part 1: Evaluation design paper For this assignment, you will describe the program, determine the scope of evaluation, and lay out an evaluation plan. Describing a program will include background of the program, the scope of the program (e.g., targeted clients, geographic area, and so forth), and how the program is supposed to work (the program theory) including the theory of change diagram. The scope of evaluation will include the current state of the program (including issues and challenges), systematic review/synthesis of past evaluation studies and findings, legal mandates for performance audit, purpose of evaluation, and key impact evaluation questions to be addressed. The impact evaluation questions should align the logical framework of the program. Evaluation synthesis is a systematic review of the state of evaluation studies on a specific program or on a specific aspect of a program. It involves gathering evaluation studies and reports performed by different evaluators at different times and then reviewing them systematically to take stock of the existing evaluation findings relating to the goal (outcome) for which the policy or the program was introduced in the first place. Evaluation synthesis helps determine the effectiveness of a policy/program and come up with new evaluation research questions. Next, you will identify the impacts, determine indicators of impacts, and propose an evaluation design to assess the impact. You will also identify the data needs for the indicators of impacts, and how the data will be collected (data collection plan/strategies). It should show which data will address which evaluation questions. Length of the paper: 14 to 15 pages with standard 1-inch margin, double spaced, and 12-point font. It should use Chicago-style author-date citation for in-text citations and for references at the end of the paper. The cover page, appendices, and list of references are outside the page limit.