AfroTech Horizons has conducted multiple endline evaluations for international NGOs operating in Tanzania. Each evaluation teaches us something new — about programmes, about communities, and about what separates a useful evaluation from a compliance exercise.
Here are the principles that guide our approach.
Start with the Questions That Matter
Before designing any endline methodology, we ask the commissioning organisation one question: what decisions will this evaluation inform? If the answer is “we need to report to the donor,” we push back. Evaluations designed purely for donor reporting tend to confirm what the programme already believes about itself.
The most useful evaluations are designed around genuine learning questions — areas where the organisation is uncertain, where evidence could change a decision, where honest findings would be acted upon regardless of whether they are positive or negative.
Comparison is Everything
An endline without a baseline is an opinion. An endline without a comparison group is a trend line. The gold standard is a baseline-endline comparison with a control group — measuring change in the target population against change in a comparable population that did not receive the intervention.
We recognise this isn’t always possible. When it isn’t, we are transparent about the limitations of the causal claims the evaluation can support.
Give Voice to the People Programmes Serve
Quantitative surveys tell you what changed. Qualitative methods tell you why, how, and what it meant to the people involved. AfroTech integrates both — not as an afterthought, but as equal components of the evaluation design.
For Save the Children’s CCSA programme, child-friendly data collection tools ensured that children’s own perspectives on social accountability were captured directly, not filtered through adult proxies.
Findings Should Be Usable
The best evaluation report in the world is worthless if nobody reads it. AfroTech writes evaluation reports for decision-makers, not for academic audiences. We lead with key findings, present evidence clearly, and make recommendations that are specific, actionable, and realistic given the organisation’s resources and context.
We also present findings back to programme teams before finalising reports — giving organisations the opportunity to respond to findings, correct factual errors, and engage with recommendations before the document is complete.
If you are planning an endline evaluation, AfroTech Horizons would be glad to discuss your needs.