June 20, 2026 - BY Admin
Commissioning an evaluation is one of the higher-stakes procurement decisions an organisation makes. You're buying judgement: the ability to look at a complex project and produce findings credible enough that a donor acts on them, and useful enough that your own team learns from them. Get it right, and the evaluation earns back its cost many times over. Get it wrong and you've paid for a document that sits unread.
The difference between a strong evaluator and a mediocre one rarely shows up in the CV. Everyone's CV looks impressive. It shows up in how they answer a handful of questions before the contract is signed. Here are the seven worth asking and what a good answer actually sounds like.
The best evaluator isn't the one with the most polished proposal. It's the one who can explain, in plain terms, how they'll get from your questions to credible answers and who's honest about what they can't do.
Do they understand the OECD-DAC criteria?
Most donor-funded evaluations are structured around the six OECD-DAC criteria relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability. A consultant who can't speak fluently about what each one is really asking will produce a report that satisfies the format but misses what donors actually look for.
A strong evaluator talks about the criteria as questions, not headings and mentions coherence (the criterion added in the 2019 revision) without being prompted. The red flag: they list only five, or treat the criteria as a formatting structure to drop findings into rather than a way of thinking.
Why it matters: if the consultant doesn't know what donors read behind each criterion, the report won't either and you'll be the one explaining the gaps when it comes back.
Have they worked in your sector?
Evaluating a health programme is genuinely different from evaluating education, WASH, governance, or livelihoods. Sector experience shapes the questions an evaluator knows to ask, the dynamics they know to look for, and the findings they know not to take at face value.
Specific, relevant past work in your sector and a comparable context not just a long, generic portfolio. The red flag is a consultant who treats every sector as interchangeable, or whose examples are all from a different kind of programming.
For example: a health evaluator who doesn't know to probe supply chains or referral systems will miss the findings that matter most and you'll only realise it when the donor asks about them.
What methodology will they use?
Be cautious of any consultant who jumps straight to data collection "we'll run a survey and some interviews." A credible evaluator starts from your evaluation questions and designs backward to the methods that can actually answer them.
A clear line from evaluation questions to methods to analysis: mixed methods where appropriate, how they'll triangulate findings across sources, and how they'll ensure credibility. The red flag is a fixed method offered before they've understood what you're trying to learn.
Why it matters: methodology is the foundation of a credible evaluation. A consultant who can't explain how their methods connect to your questions is improvising and it will show in the findings.
Who will actually collect the data?
The quality of your findings depends on the quality of the fieldwork and the fieldwork is rarely done by the senior expert whose CV won you over. It's done by enumerators. Too often they're unnamed, under-trained, and barely supervised, and the data suffers accordingly.
Clarity on who the enumerators are, what training they'll receive, how field supervision will work, and what ethical standards (consent, safeguarding, data protection) are in place. The red flag is vagueness about the field team or an assumption that fieldwork "just happens."
Why it matters: even the best evaluation design fails if the data is collected badly. This is where good designs quietly fall apart.
How do they ensure data quality?
Reliable evaluations need reliable data, and reliable data doesn't happen by accident. Ask the consultant directly how they prevent the errors: duplicates, missing values, inconsistent definitions that quietly corrupt findings before anyone notices.
Concrete quality-assurance processes: tool pre-testing, field supervision, daily data reviews, cleaning procedures, and written indicator definitions. The red flag is reassurance without a system "we're very careful" is not a method.
Why it matters: if you can't trust the data, you can't trust the conclusions drawn from it and neither can your donor.
Can they facilitate learning, not just assess?
The best evaluations do more than judge performance, they help your team understand what worked, what didn't, and what to do differently. A consultant who delivers a report and disappears leaves much of the value on the table.
A clear process for sharing and making sense of findings; a validation or learning workshop, recommendations developed with your team rather than handed down, and space to discuss what the evidence means for the next phase. The red flag is an engagement that ends at report submission.
Why it matters: an evaluation should generate action, not just a document. Learning is where that action begins.
Will the recommendations be actionable?
The entire value of an evaluation lies in what happens next and that depends on the recommendations. Recommendations that are too broad, unrealistic, or impossible to implement are worse than useless, because they consume attention and deliver nothing.
A track record of recommendations that are specific, practical, prioritised, and tied to who should act on them. The simplest test: ask to see the recommendations from a past report. The red flag is generic advice like "strengthen M&E" or "increase community engagement"; true, useless, and impossible to act on.
Why it matters: a brilliant analysis with vague recommendations changes nothing. Actionable recommendations are what turn an evaluation into improvement.
The answers matter more than the CV
Every one of these questions is answerable in a short conversation before you sign anything. A strong evaluator welcomes them, they're the questions a serious professional expects, and answering them well is a chance to demonstrate exactly how they think. A weaker consultant deflects, generalises, or reassures without substance.
That's the real point. The CV tells you what someone has done. The answers tell you how they think and how an evaluator thinks is what determines whether your evaluation is credible to your donor, useful to your team, and worth what you paid for it.
Looking for an evaluation you can trust?
At M & E Lab Consultancy Limited (MELAB), our work is built on exactly these principles — and we're glad to answer all seven questions before you commit. With 20+ international experts across health, WASH, protection, livelihoods, education, and governance, we deliver credible, useful evaluations across East and Southern Africa.
📞 +255 747 454 795 (Call / WhatsApp) · ✉️ info@melabconsulting.com · 🌐 melabconsulting.com
