Transparency data

Data and evidence (EQUALS) summary 2022 to 2023

Published 30 March 2023

© Crown copyright 2023

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/official-development-assistance-oda-fcdo-international-programme-spend-objectives-2022-to-2023/data-and-evidence-equals-summary-2022-to-2023

Overview

EQUALS 2 is a £4.7 million programme to be implemented over 3 years. It supports in delivering the FCDO Evaluation Policy. Standards through its independent, external service aimed at improving evaluation quality and relevance across FCDO and other Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending government departments.

It delivers independent quality assurance, playing a key role in providing unbiased scrutiny of evaluation products and systems to ensure high quality, value for money and ethical soundness. It provides a range of specialist evaluation and monitoring technical advice that bolsters, supplements and complements the existing FCDO Evaluation Adviser resource – providing additional thematic or methodological expertise with an independent perspective.

Objective

EQUALS 2 provides 3 core services to deliver its objectives:

  1. Short term Expert Technical Advice (ETA): to those planning, managing and supporting evaluations (such as helping with Theory of Change development or undertaking an evaluability assessment).
  2. Independent Quality Assurance (QA) of evaluation products: e.g. Terms of Reference (TORs), Baseline, Inception or Final Reports.
  3. Evaluation Insights: support the production of evaluation guidance and practical learning that is relevant across the FCDO evaluation portfolio, driving uptake and use of evaluation.

Budget

EQUALS non-ODA budget is allocated through the International Programme, for 2022 to 2023 this is £200,000.

Achievements

EQUALS is an on-demand service flexing to the needs of the organisation; specific achievements cannot be predefined.

In 2022 to 2023 the non-ODA budget supported numerous non-ODA efforts to strengthen our ability to measure and learn from the full spectrum of FCDO activities. These have included: Theory of Change workshops, programme portfolio reviews to ensure coherence, developing indicators and ways to measure and track outcomes and impact, quality of evidence assessments, and reviews assessing the effectiveness of our work.

The small budget is able to have a big impact by using highly experienced and relevant expertise in short bursts at the right time working collaboratively with the in-house expertise.

Back to top