Person:
Morra Imas, Linda
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Fields of Specialization
Evaluation; development evaluation
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Externally Hosted Work
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Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Dr. Linda Morra Imas is founder and co-director of IPDET, the International Program for Development Evaluation Training. She was Chief Evaluation Officer and Evaluation Capacity Building Adviser for the World Bank Group and earlier, a director at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Now, as an independent consultant, she advises and provides M&E training to non-profits, national ministries, and various aid organizations-- building on 30+ years of experience managing evaluations nationally and internationally and in developed, developing, and transition countries. She has co-authored the first textbook on development evaluation. She specializes in case study method and often provides a workshop on the topic. Dr. Morra Imas received her doctorate in evaluation from the University of Virginia and has been an adjunct professor in evaluation at George Washington University. She also is known for her work on development evaluation competencies and professionalization of the field.
Publication Search Results
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Publication
The Capacity to Evaluate : Why Countries Need It
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-06)Evaluation skills are central to effective development work. Evaluation captures real results, leads to feedback and learning, and identifies areas where more capacity is needed. It is also an essential tool for making mid-course corrections in ongoing programs, developing appropriate indicators, tracking an individual's or organization's capacity to deliver on its mandate, and guiding the design of future programming. Donors now expect countries to be full partners in the development process, which means that they need to have the capacity to evaluate their own progress and to use the findings to continuously improve their performance. The evidence suggests that these changes can potentially have a transformative effect on governance and make poverty reduction efforts dramatically more effective. The World Bank, in partnership with Carleton University in Ottawa, is currently providing evaluation capacity development through its International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET), which has already trained more than 850 practitioners from 100 countries. -
Publication
The Road to Results : Designing and Conducting Effective Development Evaluations
(World Bank, 2009-12-01)The analytical, conceptual, and political framework of development is changing dramatically. The new development agenda calls for broader understandings of sectors, countries, development strategies, and policies. It emphasizes learning and continuous feedback at all phases of the development cycle. As the development agenda grows in scope and complexity, development evaluation follows suit. Development evaluator are moving away from traditional implementation and output-focused evaluation models toward results-based evaluation models, as the development community calls for results and embraces the millennium development goals. As the development community shifts its focus away from projects in order to comprehensively address country challenges, development evaluators are seeking methods with which to assess results at the country, sector, theme, policy, and even global levels. As the development community recognizes the importance of not only a comprehensive but also a coordinated approach to developing country challenges and emphasizes partnerships, development evaluators are increasingly engaged in joint evaluations. These joint evaluations, while advantageous in many respects, add to the complexity of development evaluation (OECD 2006). Additionally, development evaluators increasingly face the measurement challenge of determining the performance of an individual development organization in this broader context and of identifying its contribution. This text is intended as a tool for use in building development evaluation capacity. It aims to help development evaluators think about and explore the new evaluation architecture and especially to design and conduct evaluations that focus on results in meeting the challenges of development.