In this episode 6, part 1, Dr. Wand critiques the Colleges & Institutes Canada www.collegesinstitutes.ca Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) for a $18 Million project in Senegal entitled A Thousand women: I am, I exist, I participate. You can learn more about the project here: https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/P006852001 He concludes that the PMF is flawed and that Colleges & Institutes Canada cannot make the claim that its project services have achieved its project outcomes. He also describes the services that the project delivers and invites listeners to request a copy of the PMF and his critique. Finally, he invites a Colleges & Institutes Canada representative to attend Part 2 of the episode to respond to his critique and provide solutions as to how to improve the evaluation of the project.

In this episode 5, Part 2, Dr. Wand discusses with evaluation expert Benjamin Serebour and MEDA representative Yasir Dildar the Mennonite Economic Development Associates www.meda.org Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) for a $19,040,307 Million project in Africa, Americas, and Asia entitled A New Partnership for Sustainable Impact Investing in Frontier Markets. You can learn more about this project at https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/D000120001. This discussion focuses the flaws with the PMF and provides solutions to how the PMF can be improved. In brief, those solutions include:

• Stop using self-reporting/Most Significant Change from individuals trained/mentored by MEDA as a method to claim that these individuals have experienced increased levels of skill/knowledge/technical ability. Replace this with objective, technical measures of technical ability. If this is too expensive, take a sample. If these individuals and organizations refuse this, do not provide the training and mentoring. You have that leverage.
• For organizations or 'entities' that MEDA claims to be increasing their standards of reporting on gender and environmental issues due to their training/mentoring, replace the number reporting on these standards with the percentage achieving this minimum standard using your technical audits and put this in your PMF.
• MEDA cannot find comparison groups that wish to participate in being measured on their project outcomes. Fair enough. Take your treatment group and use half of them as your comparison group and deliver your training/mentoring to that group later. See Chapter 5 Quasi-Experimentation Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation Second Edition ISBN 0-7879-6713-0 for other options without using comparison groups.
• Include country level reporting in your PMF as there are bound to be variations in performance between countries.

In this episode 5, Part 1, Dr. Wand critiques the Mennonite Economic Development Associates www.meda.org Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) for a $19,040,307 Million project in Africa, Americas, and Asia entitled A New Partnership for Sustainable Impact Investing in Frontier Markets. He concludes that the PMF is flawed and that the Mennonite Development Associates cannot make the claim that its project services have achieved its project outcomes. He also describes the services that the project delivers and invites listeners to request a copy of the PMF and his critique. Finally, he invites a Mennonite Development Associates representative to attend Part 2 of the episode to respond to his critique and provide solutions as to how to improve the evaluation of the project.

In this Part 2 of Episode 4, Dr. Wand discusses flaws in the Ghana Rural Integrated Development international development organization https://grid-nea.org/ Performance Measurement Framework PMF for its $1,337,797 project in Ghana entitled Improving the Well-Being of Rural Women and Girls in Ghana. Dr. Wand concludes that their PMF is not sufficient to support GRID's claim that it has achieved its project outcomes. He propose solutions on how to improve the evaluation of the project. Finally, Dr. Wand invites listeners to receive a copy of the PMF and his summary critique of the project's outcome indicators by emailing him at [email protected]. In order to improve development evaluation, Dr. Wand recommends that all PMFs should be made available to the public on the Global Affairs Canada project browser and that all organizations use the solutions discussed on this episode when designing their PMFs. Further details about this GRID project can be found at https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/P005964001. Notice that the PMF for this project is not available on the Global Affairs Canada project browser!!!

In this episode 4, Part 1, Dr. Wand critiques the Ghana Rural Integrated Development www.grid-nea.org Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) for a $1.337 Million project in Ghana entitled Improving the Well Being of Rural Women and Girls in Ghana. He concludes that the PMF is flawed and that theGhana Rural Integrated Development cannot make the claim that its project services have achieved its project outcomes. He also describes the services that the project delivers and invites listeners to request a copy of the PMF and his critique. Finally, he invites a Ghana Rural Integrated Development representative to attend Part 2 of the episode to respond to his critique and provide solutions as to how to improve the evaluation of the project.

In this Part 2 of Episode 3, Dr. Wand discusses with evaluation expert Benjamin Serebour flaws in UNFPA South Sudan's https://southsudan.unfpa.org/ Performance Measurement Framework PMF for its $37,000,000 project in South Sudan entitled Human Resources for Sexual Reproductive Health in South Sudan. They conclude that their PMF is not sufficient to support UNFPA's claim that it has achieved its project outcomes. They propose solutions on how to improve the evaluation of the project. Finally, Dr. Wand urges listeners to contact the Minister for International Development at [email protected] as well as the shadow critics [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected] to require all organizations to post their PMFs on the Global Affairs Canada project browser and have all organizations implement the solutions discussed when designing their PMFs. Further details about this UNFPA South Sudan project can be found at https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/P007519001.

In this Part 2 of Episode 2, Dr. Wand discusses with evaluation expert Hayat Askar flaws in the Canadian Bureau for International Education http://www.cbie.ca/ Performance Measurement Framework PMF for its $5,000,000 project in Canada entitled African Leaders of Tomorrow Scholarships Fund. They conclude that the Outcome Indicators are not sufficient to support the claim that the Canadian Bureau for International Education has achieved its project outcomes. They propose solutions on how to improve the evaluation of the project. Finally, Dr. Wand urges listeners to contact the Minister of International Development at [email protected] as well as the shadow critics at [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected] to post online all Performance Measurement Frameworks and relevant evaluation plans on the Global Affairs Canada project browser for all organizations that they fund. Further details about this Canadian Bureau for International Education project can be found at https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/D000980001. You will notice that the Performance Measurement Framework is not there!!

In this Part 2 of Episode 1, Dr. Wand discusses with evaluation experts Donald Cole and Dr. Mark Degner flaws in CARE Canada's Performance Measurement Framework PMF for its $3,400,000 project in Vietnam entitled Advancing Women's Economic Empowerment. They conclude that 'stories of change' may be necessary but are not sufficient to support CARE Canada in its claim that it has achieved its project outcomes. They propose solutions on how to improve the evaluation of the project. Finally, Dr. Wand urges listeners to contact CARE Canada at [email protected] to request they post all their project PMFs on their website and to implement the solutions discussed. Further details about this CARE Canada project can be found at https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/P007336001

In this episode 3, Part 1, Dr. Wand critiques a United Nations Population Fund UNFPA www.unfpa.org Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) for a $37 Million project in South Sudan entitled Human Resources for Sexual Reproductive Health Rights and Gender-Based Violence in South Sudan. He concludes that the PMF is flawed and that the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA cannot make the claim that its project services have achieved its project outcomes. He also describes the services that the project delivers and invites listeners to request a copy of the PMF and his critique. Finally, he invites a United Nations Population Fund UNFPA representative to attend Part 2 of the episode to respond to his critique and provide solutions as to how to improve the evaluation of the project. An evaluation expert will also be attending Part 2 of the episode to provide comments on the UNFPA PMF. More details about the UNFPA South Sudan project funded by the Government of Canada can be found here: https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/P007519001

In this episode 2, Part 1, Dr. Wand critiques a Canadian Bureau for International Education www.cbie.ca Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) for a $5,127,124 project in Canada entitled African Leaders of Tomorrow Scholarships Fund. He concludes that the PMF is flawed and that the Canadian Bureau for International Education cannot make the claim that its project services have achieved its project outcomes. He also describes the services that the project delivers and invites listeners to request a copy of the PMF and his critique. Finally, he invites the Canadian Bureau for International Education as well as an evaluation expert to attend a later podcast for Part 2 of the episode to respond to his critique and provide solutions as to how to improve the evaluation of the project.