Poster for Ex-post Evaluation: Illuminating new levels of rigor for sustainability, effectiveness, accountability and learning (Panel)
Ex-post evaluation takes place after (or long after) project completion. Unlike final project evaluations, which are completed at the time of a project’s conclusion, an ex-post evaluation is conducted in the years after a project’s official end date.
Ex-post evaluations are conducted to assess whether a specific intervention was justified and whether it worked (or is working) as expected in achieving its objectives and why. Ex-post evaluations also look for unintended effects (i.e. those which were not anticipated prior to or during the projects) and look for evidence of causality.
An ex-post evaluation is a highly valuable tool for determining not just how successful a development project may have been after resources and international funding were withdrawn, but rather the long-term sustainability of the outcomes of projects.
Ex-post evaluation is considered an important activity for project sustainability but remains a rare event in the project cycle. While most international development projects aim and claim sustainability of their interventions, and the international community has signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals, fewer than 1% of development projects are evaluated after funding ends.