Understand your stakeholder and audience requirements and expectations. For example, funding agencies care about efficiency of the policy intervention and researchers interested in particular contributions to their research field.
The design, implementation and reporting of outcomes of monitoring and evaluation should be tailored to suit different stakeholder requirements. The objective hierarchy can be used to identify different stakeholder needs.
The extent to which the evaluation outcomes satisfy the informational requirements of the stakeholders can prove a useful test of the design of the objective hierarchy itself.
Use a range of communication strategies for the different stakeholders concerned. For example, not all stakeholders will be interested in receiving the full evaluation report, although all should be provided access to it.
Involve stakeholders, particularly those who will use the results of the evaluation, from the start. For instance, considering "end-user" perspectives is important because end-users have practical experience of what has happened on the ground and may have a different perspective from policy makers, governments, NGOs and other organisations.
An important question that needs to be answered is: "Who will be the main users of the findings and how will they be engaged?"
It is important to consider who the anticipated users of the findings are and take into consideration the requirements of policy makers and other stakeholders. Evaluation output and reports should be tailored to meet various audience requirements. The evaluation objectives should reflect the information needs of the different stakeholders.
Evaluations and impact assessments are important when they are acted upon and they are acted upon when they address the needs of their target-audiences and consider their expectations, and when they can ensure the desired level of robustness of results and scrutiny.
