What changed
ALNAP's 2016 Evaluation of Humanitarian Action guide and its State of the Humanitarian System series (a 2026 edition was scheduled for September 2026) remained the sector's evaluative baseline, and the 2022 edition documented stagnation on localisation and accountability to affected populations.
The 2016 Grand Bargain, with its "participation revolution" workstream and annual independent reviews by ODI, kept AAP and locally-led evaluation on the agenda, while critics noted that feedback mechanisms rarely change decisions. Access constraints in Syria, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan turned third-party monitoring into an industry in itself, raising questions about data sharing and the transfer of risk to local monitors.
On climate, the GEF Independent Evaluation Office's 2018 evaluation of support for transformational change, the Green Climate Fund's real-time impact evaluations and its 2021 adaptation-portfolio evaluation defined what "evaluating transformation" and adaptation measurement mean in practice. Andy Rowe's "footprint evaluation" initiative argued that every evaluation should assess environmental footprint regardless of sector, and Patton's Blue Marble Evaluation pushed evaluators to work at planetary scale.
From 2022 the "polycrisis" framing entered evaluation discourse through the European Evaluation Society's 2024 conference theme and the International Evaluation Academy's Three Horizons initiative.
Frameworks and tools
- ALNAP EHA guide
- Core Humanitarian Standard and AAP indicators
- third-party monitoring
- GEF and GCF transformational-change frameworks
- real-time impact evaluation (LORTA)
- footprint evaluation and "sustainability-ready" evaluation
- Blue Marble principles
- nature-based solutions evaluation handbooks
Vocabulary to recognise
- AAP
- participation revolution
- localisation
- third-party monitoring
- remote monitoring
- transformational change
- resilience
- adaptation
- footprint
- Anthropocene
- polycrisis
- permacrisis
- nexus (humanitarian–development–peace)
Live controversies
Whether the DAC criteria (even after 2019) are fit for interconnected crises; "transformation-washing" of incremental projects; the ethics of third-party monitoring in conflict; and whether evaluation can or should take a normative stance on planetary boundaries.
Further reading
- ALNAP, Evaluation of Humanitarian Action Guide, 2016, and The State of the Humanitarian System series.
- ODI/HPG, The Grand Bargain at five years: an independent review, 2021.
- Stephanie Diepeveen et al., Data sharing and third-party monitoring in humanitarian response, ODI/HPG, 2022.
- GEF Independent Evaluation Office, Evaluation of GEF Support for Transformational Change, 2018; Green Climate Fund IEU, Independent evaluation of the adaptation portfolio, 2021.
- BetterEvaluation, Introducing footprint evaluation; Andy Rowe, Sustainability-Ready Evaluation, AEA365.
- Michael Quinn Patton, Evaluation Criteria for Evaluating Transformation: Implications for the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Global Climate Emergency, American Journal of Evaluation, 2021; Blue Marble Evaluation, Premises and principles.
- Juha Uitto, Surviving the Anthropocene: How evaluation can contribute to knowledge and better policymaking, Evaluation, 2021.
- Zenda Ofir, When Evaluation Meets Polycrisis: Reimagining Our Field for Turbulent Times, AEA365, 2025; International Evaluation Academy, 3 Horizons Evaluation Initiative.
- Adaptation Fund, Scoping Study on the Use of AI in Climate Change Evaluations, 2025.