Evaluation & impact reports

Newsrooms are inundated with metrics of impact … today, there exist just too many data points for online activity.

Is it really the role of a journalist to always have an impact? Should stories be chosen only if they target impact? When there is an impact – how can we assume journalism was the sole catalyst – when often it is a factor along with governmental or larger societal forces at play?

“To better inform decision-making in these areas, 3ie is developing Evidence Gap Maps (EGMs) on each of these three topics.”

This briefing note summarises key messages from the United Kingdom’s LearnAdapt programme – a three-year collaboration between Better Delivery and Emerging Policy, Innovation, Capability Departments of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), ODI, Brink, Feedback Labs and the Centre for Public Impact.

The programme, which ran from April 2017 to November 2020, worked closely with FCDO (formerly the Department for International Development) to create systems and processes and nurture an environment that enabled adaptive programming for greater development effectiveness.

"DW Akademie collects and documents the impacts of its projects through a range of methods. There are three approaches that are currently standard in development cooperation: Applied studies, which enable new insights on impacts, impactoriented monitoring performed with local partners in the course of project work, and evaluations prepared by external experts.

The present volume focuses on additional methods for presenting impacts: reports from 13 different countries and quantitative data, so-called aggregated impact data, which are regularly collected and bundled. Aggregated impact data sets provide a numerical overview of the people who have been reached through the work of DW Akademie.

In 2018, for example, 9.6 million people in rural areas were provided with relevant information with the support of DW Akademie. 26.6 million people have benefited from the restructuring of their state broadcasters and now receive more diverse and attractive reporting. In this publication you will get to know some of the people behind these figures.

Their stories are not representative of the totality of the supported target groups but they show which approaches and solutions have worked for individual people and why. In the following chapters, you will get to know Thu Thu from Myanmar who turns on her microphone in the afternoon and supplies the surrounding communities with reliable regional news and information from the country’s first community radio station.

You will learn how media workers in Burkina Faso are trying to halt the increasing violence in their region through their reporting. You will also meet César who once didn’t believe he had what it takes to be accepted into a journalism training course and is now a respected reporter and a sought-after online journalism trainer." (introduction)

"2019 has seen major achievements resulting from needs-based, and specifically-tailored support through the Multi-Donor Programme on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists (MDP). Actions building on ongoing work and others opening new avenues, have initiated substantial changes in favour of freedom of expression and media development.

The stories presented here are some examples of how the MDP works to provide countries and their populations with the necessary tools to nurture a free and independent media. This includes promoting the adoption of policies and standards on freedom of expression and safety of journalists, and fostering diversity, gender equality and media and information literacy through and with the media. Hence the name given to this series of articles: Let Free Media Thrive." (editorial, p.2)