Monitoring and evaluation planning add value at the design stage of a project or program. They can make the project or program more efficient and effective by helping clarify the results to be achieved. Also, knowing what information will be necessary to evaluate the outcomes will allow it to be collected as it becomes available. This will reduce the amount of financial and human resources required and improve the project or program team's ability to report on, and learn from, its experiences. Evaluation should be an asset for those being evaluated.
Evaluation can impose a considerable time and resource burden on recipient institutions.
IDRC evaluations should also generate information that can benefit the recipient institution. Evaluation is both science and art. The art of identifying critical issues to be evaluated, organizing them conceptually, and bringing the appropriate people to participate in the collection, interpretation, and utilization of the evaluation information is as important as the systematic collection and analysis of reliable data. Evaluations are a means of negotiating different realities. Evaluations should leave behind an increased capacity for using evaluation findings.