timely information for management decision-making; and second, the internal evaluation process in itself has a positive effect on both decision-making and the organizational performance. Love suggested that “over the next few years we can expect the internal evaluation function to continue growing and changing” (A. J. Love, 1983). By the way, this prediction was published 30 years before the one made by John Gargani.
Around the same time, Ernest House (1986) observed that the practice of public organizations in the United States was shifting from external evaluations, conducted primarily by universities and private companies, to internal evaluations conducted by specially created units. At the same time, most of the publications available at the time referred specifically to external evaluation. That is why the publication of A. J. Love’s book, “Internal Evaluation: Building Organizations from Within” (A. J. Love, 1991) became a remarkable event. The author of this book remains one of the most quoted authors to this day, when it comes to internal evaluation.
Table 1. Benefits and limitations of external and internal evaluation
20 years later, the “New Directions in Evaluation” series[28] publishes a collection of works titled “Internal Evaluation in the 21st Century.” Isn’t it somewhat old for a new direction?
In an interview with the book’s editor (Volkov, 2011), Arnold Love recalls that in the 1990s up to 60 percent of all evaluations in the United States were conducted internally. At the same time, internal evaluation was developing differently from country to country. In Canada, for example, the federal government decided back in late 1970s that evaluations of government programs should be primarily internal, while the Japan Evaluation Society reported in 2006 that 99 % of evaluations in their country were internal.
Even though internal evaluation is being actively implemented all over the world, the number of studies and publications on this topic in the second decade of the 21st century is still very limited (Volkov & Baron, 2011). However, the issues of developing internal evaluation in smaller organizations with limited resources are increasingly coming into spotlight (Baron, 2011; Rogers, McCoy, & Kelly, 2019).
Practice shows that internal evaluation can coexist happily with external evaluation, and most experts now agree that these are not mutually exclusive, but complementary approaches (see Table 1).
Now back to John Gargani’s prediction (Gargani, 2012). He suggested that internal evaluation in the U. S. would largely replace external evaluation within 10 years. Thus, most program and project evaluations in the United States would be internal by 2022. Apparently, this has not happened yet, but we can definitely state that internal evaluation is developing in both government and non-government organizations in the United States, Canada, Japan, and many other countries. Russia is no exception.
INTERNAL EVALUATION IN RUSSIA
Without going too much into historical detail, we should note that in Russia everything started with external evaluation, which was “imported” to us in the early 1990s along with the international assistance programs by numerous foreign organizations (Kuzmin et al., 2007). Gradually, local evaluators started appearing as well. At the same time, evaluation developed in two directions: the market for external evaluation services was being established alongside the development of internal evaluation function.
The Russian NGOs needed to develop their own evaluation capacity for at least two reasons: 1) donor organizations’ requirements, and 2) the need to build management control systems due to increasingly complex and expanding NGO activities (Kuzmin, 2020). However, the majority of Russian NGOs failed to pay attention to developing evaluation competencies for quite some time.
The situation has only started in recent years:
• there has been a marked increase in the demand for training for NGO managers and staff in the field of evaluation;
• NGOs have learned to collect and process data much more efficiently;
• a number of NGOs have acquired successful internal evaluation experience;
• donor organizations increasingly require NGOs to submit analytical reports;
• at the annual conferences of the Association of Specialists in Program and Policy Evaluation (ASPPE)[29], there has been a noticeable increase in the number of presentations on experiences in developing internal evaluation and its importance for high-quality organization management.
Six years ago, as I was observing these processes and comparing them to what was happening abroad, I suggested that by 2026 Russia would see “an increase in the evaluation capacity of various organizations, the development of internal evaluation and self-evaluation” (Kuzmin, 2016). Looks like this prediction is coming true. Another proof of this is the creation of the PROOCENKU Alliance[30] in 2021 and the opening of an online discussion club of the same name, focused mainly on the development of internal evaluation and self-evaluation:
“The PROOCENKU Club is an ongoing online discussion platform for anyone interested in evaluation. The Club’s slogan goes as follows: “An interesting conversation in a good company.” The Club’s mission is to support a community of practitioners dedicated to integrating evaluation into the work of socially oriented organizations. Nothing is required to participate in the meetings, other than the desire. Education, level of training in evaluation, and practical experience are not important.”[31]
PRINCIPLES OF SELF-EVALUATION OF NGO PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS
ASPPE has developed and published a number of important works on the professional development of professional evaluators. These include the Principles of Program and Policy Evaluation (ASPPE, 2017).
Professional principles are born out of practice and determine how members of the profession should behave in situations of difficult choices. Principles cannot be invented before real experience has been accumulated: it is a natural evolutionary process. When a profession reaches a certain level of maturity and a professional community (association) has been established, that community comes together to agree on the principles. Therefore, the principles of program and policy evaluation adopted by ASPPE are important not only as guidelines for action, but also as evidence of the emerging evaluation profession in Russia.
These principles are designed to take into account the fact that, generally, three parties can participate in the
