11.6 Next steps?

Needs assessments analyze the context’s characteristics to identify the intervention that would be the best match for solving a perceived problem affecting a specific context and community. Needs assessment will often be conducted using a combination of criteria and evaluation methodologies. In spending reviews the intervention’s effectiveness and efficiency are criteria used in complementarity to the relevance criteria to determine if the intervention should continue to be funded.

Other evaluation questions and methodologies can help conducting needs assessments. For example, an ex-ante needs assessment can naturally lead to conducting a reverse logic analysis to identify interventions suited to a specific context that are promising for achieving the objectives. A reverse logic analysis strategy could also be pertinent to inform ex-post needs assessment, as the expectation is to implement knowledge-informed priority-setting and decision-making.