The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) plans to commit 0.6-0.8 percent of its total annual budget to evaluations and reviews in order to show accountability for its actions. This is in line with the average for other development agencies. Bilateral donors devote between 0.1 and 2.5 percent of their total budget to evaluations. The SDC publishes its annual evaluation schedule and the completed evaluations on its website.
The SDC’s evaluation policy underscores the importance of evaluation and places it in a wider context. It reveals the main national and international trends in evaluation and provides an overview of its evaluation framework. This policy is normative in nature and lays the foundation for the definition of minimum quality assurance standards. It deliberately does not go into a detailed discussion of individual evaluation methods. The DAC/OECD standards, the standards for humanitarian aid (ALNAP Standards) and the Swiss Evaluation Society (SEVAL) standards together form the binding framework.
The SDC’s evaluation policy is organised around 10 guiding principles that reflect the core values of SDC’s evaluation activities and form an overarching and binding framework for all its employees. They are as follows: independent evaluation teams, impartiality, objectivity and credibility, transparency, partnership, feasibility, utility, complementarity, subsidiarity, controlling, and data protection and confidentiality.