This reflection paper draws lessons from the final evaluation of the Strategic Partnership Citizen Agency Consortium (SP CAC) program, implemented by Hivos, IIED and Article 19. The SP CAC was funded through the Dutch government’s Dialogue and Dissent framework (2016-2020) and includes four distinct lobby and advocacy (L&A) programs
The paper describes the experiences of the consortium with implementing a large multi-country evaluation of four programs. We take stock of what worked and what didn’t work when evaluating the outcomes of a diverse set of L&A strategies and activities, and assessing the effects of the capacity development efforts. We outline a number of lessons for future evaluations of L&A. In a final discussion section, we also reflect on what these findings could imply for future monitoring and evaluation efforts of advocacy programs – in terms of defining what counts as outcomes, how to do contribution analysis, and how to support learning.
