ADE is one of Europe’s leading evaluation consultancies. Evaluation is a core specialty deployed in all our areas of expertise.
ADE has carried out more than 400 evaluations to date across a wide range of sectors, clients and regions around the world. This includes policy and strategy evaluations, project and programme evaluations, as well as rigorous impact evaluations. ADE also designs full monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and learning (MEL) systems.
“The human being first put values into things, in order to preserve itself – it created a meaning for things, a human's meaning! Therefore, it calls itself 'human' – that is: the evaluator. (…) Evaluation is creation (…) Valuating is itself the value and jewel of all valued things. Only through evaluation is there value and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow.``
Evaluation of public policies and programmes, and more specifically its complex link with accountability and decision-making on public action, is at the centre of our work.
ADE evaluation design is grounded in state-of-the-art evaluation standards. We follow the OECD DAC evaluation criteria (revised in 2019) and the EU Better Regulation guidelines (2015), refining them to adapt to client demands and developing innovative approaches where useful.
We are committed to continuously improving our evaluation methods and fostering innovation in order to provide clients with cutting-edge services. Benefiting from our strong in-house expertise, including many staff members with extensive academic expertise, and from continuous interaction with leading external evaluation experts, ADE creates synergies between different approaches and stays at the forefront of the evaluation discipline. We actively contribute to the state-of-thinking within the international evaluation community by disseminating results through reports, infographics, interactive tools and conference contributions.
ADE has in-depth expertise in both primary and secondary data collection and has developed innovative tools to collect data remotely and by relying on local partners. ADE has strong in-house data science expertise.
ADE actively contributes to knowledge sharing on evaluation. ADE is an institutional member of the European Evaluation Society. We regularly present at its conferences and in other events of the international evaluation community.
We have a strict Quality Assurance System (QAS) for our evaluations. Furthermore, all ADE activities are certified in conformity with the standards of quality system ISO 9001. Many of ADE’s clients have explicitly recognised the high quality of our evaluations.
Policy and strategy evaluation
Evaluation of public policies and strategies, and of institutions and aid modalities, lies at the heart of ADE’s activity. We specialise in complex evaluations, often covering multiple sectors or countries. Typical exercises are thematic/policy evaluations, country-strategy evaluations, institutional evaluations, and evaluations of aid modalities (such as CAP, environmental evaluations, budget support, blended finance, COVID response, and channeling through the UN/WB/Member States/CSOs).
We guarantee the high quality of these evaluations by:
- Combining highly skilled in-house staff, associate consultants, and freelance experts, in multidisciplinary teams
- Paying high attention to evaluation design, centered on the strategic questions which matter most and deploying state-of-the-art evaluation tools and techniques
- Deploying a stakeholders engagement strategy to enrich the analysis and foster results appropriation
- Actively participating at dissemination and communication events
- Providing strong back-office support and quality assurance
Project and programme evaluation
ADE conducts numerous project and programme evaluations. This comprises notably mid-term and final evaluations, conducted through Framework contracts.
Project and programme evaluation
ADE conducts numerous project and programme evaluations. This comprises notably mid-term and final evaluations, conducted through Framework contracts.
Impact evaluation
Bringing academic standards and policy reality together.
- Fully-fledged impact evaluations from baseline to endline relying on strong in-house expertise
- Rigorous mixed methods approach
- Innovative approaches to collecting reliable first-hand data and using sound secondary data
- High-quality data analysis to produce evidence-based findings
- Participatory approach and sensemaking process
- Network of academics and local experts
- Active knowledge sharing at academic, institutional and government levels
Monitoring and evaluation systems
With 30 years of experience in evaluation and data use, ADE provides sound, rigorous and realistic M&E systems meeting clients’ objectives and needs.
- Following an iterative and participatory process with all relevant stakeholders
- Considering all result levels up to impact based on a living theory of change
- Measuring indicators at relevant frequency
- Using reliable data from primary and secondary sources
- Creating visualisations to make findings understandable for non-technical audiences
- Providing methodological guidance for data collection and interpretation
- Embracing experimental, innovative, and creative approaches to disentangle complexity
- Offering a practical and flexible monitoring tool
Monitoring and evaluation systems
With 30 years of experience in evaluation and data use, ADE provides sound, rigorous and realistic M&E systems meeting clients’ objectives and needs.
- Following an iterative and participatory process with all relevant stakeholders
- Considering all result levels up to impact based on a living theory of change
- Measuring indicators at relevant frequency
- Using reliable data from primary and secondary sources
- Creating visualisations to make findings understandable for non-technical audiences
- Providing methodological guidance for data collection and interpretation
- Embracing experimental, innovative, and creative approaches to disentangle complexity
- Offering a practical and flexible monitoring tool