IFAD Research Series 12 - An Evidence-Based Assessment of IFAD's End-Of-Project Reporting

Project Completion Reports (PCRs) are used by development institutions to tell a project's story – achievements, failures and learning. As such, they should provide evidence of effectiveness in bringing about development. But is this the case? This article uses a descriptive content analysis approach to assess the extent of evidentiary support presented in IFAD end-of-project documentation. It employs a custom conceptual framework to classify claims about project results found in PCRs based on the results level, presence and types of evidence sources, and themes. Findings show that the majority of claims relate to output- or outcome-level results and are not explicitly supported by evidence. The lack of evidence-based reporting carries implications to the objective measurement of development effectiveness