Twende Mbele Partner Governments Conduct Rapid Evaluations for Faster Evidence Generation

In 2019, the Twende Mbele partnership began an initiative to explore rapid evaluations to provide a means to fill time-sensitive gaps and reduce late access to intervention performance information by decision-makers. While rapid evaluations are timely and cost-effective, they may lack rigor and comprehensive data when not sufficiently triangulated.

Some reasons for conducting rapid evaluation are to respond to an unplanned demand for urgent information by decision-makers. To date, Twende Mbele partner countries have conducted eight rapid evaluations, with another three in the pipeline. This article presents the implementation and findings of rapid evaluation approaches on projects in some Twende Mbele partner countries notably Ghana, Niger, South Africa and Uganda. It further outlines recommendations for ensuring relevant and usable rapid evaluations.