Understanding power shifts requires comparing how traditional and feminist evaluations structure relationships:

 

TRADITIONAL EVALUATION

FEMINIST EVALUATION

• Power held by Donors, INGOs & External Experts.

• Communities become passive respondents/data sources.

• Upward Accountability to Donor Offices.

• Extractive Data Flow (data taken, nothing returned).

• Power shared with Communities, WROs & Local Evaluators.

• Communities become Active Partners & Co-evaluators.

• Downward Accountability to Communities first.

• Empowering Knowledge Generation (data skills & narrative ownership).

 

The 4 Key Terms of Feminist Evaluation:

  1. Community-Centered: Asking the community what they want to know about the programme’s impact on their lives and building those questions into the design.
  2. Participatory: Training local community members as peer evaluators rather than relying solely on external enumerators.
  3. Downward Accountability: Holding findings-sharing meetings with the community before submitting the final report to the donor.
  4. Empowering Knowledge Generation: Ensuring community members learn data analysis skills and co-interpret what findings mean.
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