The evaluation of international development programs: A view from the front

International program evaluation is a booming business, with important and challenging evaluations of development programs being conducted in almost every country in the developing world. However, many U.S. domestic evaluation practitioners are not yet familiar with this field. Evaluators of international development programs normally must operate in a very different environment than one would expect to find when evaluating U.S. programs. These differences are discussed and a number of promising developments and methodological approaches are described here. I conclude by suggesting a number of areas in which a closer exchange of experiences between U.S. evaluation practitioners and their colleagues from developing countries could be mutually beneficial.