New Zealand Aid Tools Meetings and follow-up 

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Meetings and follow-up

Meetings and follow-up

Who Attends the Meetings?

• The core committee members are:
  • Executive Director (Chair) - 1
  • Directors of Programme Groups (AIDPAC, AIDGLO) or Team Leaders nominated to represent them - 2
  • SAEG Director or a SAEG Team Leader (other than evaluation) nominated to represent him/her - 1
  • SAEG Evaluation Team Leader or nominated representative - 1
  • Comms team representative
• The relevant DPM, DPO, NZAID Manager or SAEG Adviser will present the submission at the meeting. Their Team Leader and any NZAID staff involved in appraisal are required to join them.
• Other staff members with experience and/or interest in the relevant programme(s) or activity(s) are also encouraged to attend.
• A NZAID staff member who is one of the authors of the evaluation, review or research under discussion is encouraged to attend for the discussion of the content, recommendations and implications of their report. However, they will leave the meeting when the quality of the report is discussed.

Evaluation and Research Committee Meetings

• Committee meetings are held monthly. The Committee will:
  • consider the findings, recommendations and implications of each submission. In the case of reviews and evaluations of a particular programme or activity, this consideration will focus on the implications for NZAID more broadly.
  • provide advice to relevant programme team(s)
  • discuss lessons learned which will be agreed and recorded in the minutes focusing on lessons with broad applicability for NZAID’s:
    • development practice
    • organisational development
    • commissioning and management of reviews, evaluations and research studies
  • note the quality of the report as described in the submission, and possibly provide further views
  • monitor trends in the quality of review, evaluation and research reports
  • apply the Report Release Checklist, taking into consideration the recommendation of the programme team, and make a recommendation about whether to release the review, evaluation or research report, and consequently whether to release a summary of the report through the NZAID website.
• The Committee does not:
  • receive the full report of the review, evaluation or research study with submissions (only the TORs and Executive Summary - see below), although DM6 references of the full report are normally available on the agenda if further examination is required.
  • take decisions on the recommendations of the review or evaluation
  • make a judgement on the quality of the review, evaluation or research study, or suggestions for revising or improving them. These judgements and suggestions are the responsibility of the commissioning area in NZAID or partner agency, and the report should be final before submission to the Committee.

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Tips for presenting to a Meeting

Typically, the chair of the Committee will ask the author of a submission for some opening remarks.  Some suggestions:

• Keep it very brief - five minutes maximum for an opening statement. Generally, only 20-30 minutes of Committee time are available in total for each submission. As much of this time as possible needs to be available for Committee members to discuss the findings, recommendations, lessons, quality and release of the reports.
• Aim for your written submission to be self-sufficient and easy to follow, so the Committee’s attention can be quickly drawn to any part you wish to remind them of, without orally repeating large parts of the document or providing information that should have been included in the pre-reading.
• Concentrate your comments on the review/evaluation/research study and its implications. Avoid giving too much background on the underlying Activity or Programme, except where this is essential for an understanding of the findings, lessons etc from the study and is not apparent from your submission.
• Concentrate on the issues of interest to the Committee. The Committee does not micro-manage your programming decisions, but focuses on issues of broader importance for the agency as a whole.
• Highlight one, two or three issues that are either of probable particular interest to the Committee (eg lessons with broad applicability), or on which you particularly wish advice that is within the Committee’s mandate.

 

Follow-up to Evaluation and Research Committee Meetings

The minutes of each Committee meeting will be circulated NZAID-wide by email the following week and staff will have electronic access to all relevant documents.

The relevant Team Leader has decision-making authority with regard to recommendations emerging from reviews and evaluations of programme activities. The Leader will ensure decisions are logged on the Response to Recommendations from Reviews and Evaluations form (Annex 5) and an electronic copy sent to the Evaluation Team Administrator for filing with the original submission. This occurs after the Committee has considered the report.  The Team Leader will also ensure stakeholders are informed of decisions taken with respect to the recommendations, and this is documented by Merlin.  

In the case of recommendations emerging from cross-cutting, sectoral or thematic evaluations or research studies the SAEG Evaluation Team Leader and/or Evaluation Advisor will disseminate the relevant information.

In cases where there is disagreement between the programme team and the Evaluation and Research Committee about whether to release the review, evaluation or research report (and consequently whether to release the report summary through the NZAID website), the decision will be referred to AID Management (see Decision Process for Release of Review, Evaluation and Research Reports).

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