Design and evaluation of development policies

The course aims to present and discuss basic theories and applied methodologies to analyze, plan and evaluate development policies, programs and projects. After a brief review of the current international debate on development, the course will introduce the main international frameworks to design and plan development policies, with a prominent attention to the 2030 Agenda. Methodological approaches like the Policy Cycle, the Project Cycle Management and the Logical Framework will be presented through some practical cases. The second part of the Course will deal with Monitoring and Evaluation, presenting criteria and methods developed by the international community with a particular care to the criteria and practices promoted by OECD-DAC. A final step will develop a critical analysis of strengths and limits of M&E and will present some examples of best practices of evaluation from different regions.

With the course the student will know and understand the basic theoretical tools to analyze and evaluate human development processes and the role of the actors in the different phasis of the management cycle of polices, programs and projects. This knowledge will enable to read critically public planning documents and project documents of international institutions and NGOs. The student will acquire also the basic capability to use the mail methods for Project Cycle management and evaluation, in particular in the domain of international development cooperation.
Those skills will be developed and showed during the course in interactive group activities and in the final exam.