A Conceptual Overview of How and Why to Evaluate Partnership

Abstract

Partnership is understood as a cooperation among relevant stakeholders, including public, public-private, private, and civil society organizations (for example, nonprofit organizations, associations). Such a cooperation aims at improving the relevance of projects, programs, and policies, and the sustainability of their outputs (Audit Commission 1998, p. 43; OECD 2001). A sense of co-responsibility and co-ownership by all partners stands behind the increased relevance and sustainability (Iftikhar 2012). Another added value of partnership relates to enabling partners to share a pool of resources and its better use (Audit Commission 1998, pp. 44–46). The presence of partnership as the goal 17 among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) underlines its importance for sustainable development. SDGs are well covered by sub-goals (targets) and indicators to monitor their performance. This also concerns the Sustainable Development Goal No. 17 (hereafter SDG17), to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development (UN 2016), which is of our consideration. There are 19 targets and 25 monitoring indicators under the SDG17. These targets and indicators cover finance, technology, capacity-building, trade, and systemic issues (UN 2015, 2016). From this perspective, it is not a methodologically difficult task to monitor the progress in achieving the targets, but it still does not say anything about the efficiency, effectiveness, or impact of SDG17, as this is a task for evaluators. There is a difference in the use of monitoring and evaluation. Monitoring is a managerial continuous activity, with the aim to keep projects on track and check progress according to pre-defined objectives and indicators, as is also the case of the SDG17. Moreover, it helps to make corrections if the implementation is not heading towards the pre-defined objectives. An evaluation makes a judgement about the projects and policies and assesses their success or failure in relation to relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability (Morra Imas and Rist 2009, p. 108). Evaluation is used more for learning purposes than monitoring. A project that has not achieved its goals can be used for learning purposes, and evaluations can provide managers and policymakers with information on how to perform better. From this