National Evaluation Capacities Index (INCE)

The National Evaluation Capacities Index (INCE), developed by World Food Program WFP, together with the German Development Evaluation Institute (DEval), is a diagnostic tool of National Evaluation Capacities along three dimensions: an enabling environment, organisational capacities and individual capacities.

The information in the INCE is generated collaboratively, including input from public organisations, academia, development agencies or VOPE, among others, which makes it possible to learn about evaluation systems from a pluralistic perspective.

INCE data is collected through a self-administered online survey which allows capturing facts associated with the description of each system and perceptions about its capabilities. The stakeholders in each participating entity are advised to respond to the questionnaires as a group, so that the measurements provide spaces for reflection within the reporting entities.

Framework for the INCE

Based on their experience and after an exhaustive literature review, the entities participating in the initiative identified a set of indicators that best describe the capacities of a national evaluation system. These indicators and the structure established for their clustering constitute the INCE.

The INCE structure makes it possible to add the value of the indicators until reaching a synthetic expression of the capacities of a national evaluation system. The review of the different levels of disaggregation makes it possible to observe separately the capacities of the different components of the system.

The entities associated with the INCE initiative agreed to disaggregate the national evaluation system into five dimensions:

• Institutional structure: A description of the architecture that supports the evaluation function. 
• Evaluation offer: Availability and characteristics of the offer of evaluation services by professional organisations and/or networks for the public sector.
• Quality of evaluations: The adequacy of evaluation processes, products and data to international standards. 
• Multi-stakeholder space: Existence and characteristics of spaces that incorporate a plurality of actors in the development of the national evaluation systems.
• Use of evaluations: Impact of evaluation results in decision-making, learning and accountability.