Key Evaluation Questions (KEQs) to guide Footprint Evaluations

The key evaluation questions (KEQs) are designed to support the inclusion of environmental sustainability by embedding consideration of the environment in each evaluation question rather than adding environmental considerations as a standalone question.

This resource and the following information was contributed by Kaye Stevens.

This resource is a draft and the authors would appreciate any feedback or suggestions about how to make this resource useful and relevant. You can join the Footprint Evaluation Community to give feedback on this and other outputs of the Footprint Evaluation Project.

Authors and their affiliation

Jane Davidson and Andy Rowe

Key features

The list of KEQs is an output of the Footprint Evaluation project. It is grounded in a conceptualization of evaluation as being fundamentally about asking and answering evaluative questions. The KEQs build on earlier versions of generic KEQs in Jane Davidson’s evaluation workshops and publications.

As stated in the introduction: “Identifying the relevant values and unpacking the evaluative terms in each of the KEQs is a core part of the job of answering them. This is no simple or formulaic task; these discussions are an extremely important part of any evaluation. …. This list of KEQs has been designed so that it can apply in any sector, type of evaluand, level of analysis, etc. As such, the list is deliberately generic; each evaluation team should rewrite/interpret the questions for the particular sector, context, culture, population/community, evaluand, and evaluation audience, using wording that makes sense for that application.”

How have you used or intend on using this resource?

The KEQs can be used in conjunction with, or as a way of applying national or organizational evaluation criteria such as the OECD/DAC evaluation criteria.

Why would you recommend it to other people?

The KEQs are valuable prompts for discussing how to embed consideration of the natural system in the evaluation of interventions primarily concerned with human systems.