Learning from Evaluation Syntheses

This Technical Report focuses on evaluation syntheses as aid for learning and improving the utilization of evidence from evaluations. Decision-makers use such evidence to inform foreign assistance policies, strategies, projects, and activities, and for monitoring and improving evaluation quality. Evaluation syntheses are analytic studies that consolidate substantive findings from sets of evaluations on a particular topic or question (meta-analyses), or which examine some aspect of the quality of a set of evaluations (meta-evaluations). This report was developed collaboratively with USAID’s Office of Learning, Evaluation, and Research in the Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning by the E3 Analytics and Evaluation Project to inform the development of a USAID Discussion Note on Making Evidence Accessible through Evaluation Syntheses. The report also recognizes the learning value of syntheses of evidence based on sources other than evaluations. The Technical Report is a companion piece to the Discussion Note: Making Evidence Accessible through Evaluation Synthesis.