When is a retrospective impact evaluation feasible or not?

There is often a quite serious debate about whether a retrospective impact evaluation is feasible at all. The short answer is that it generally is; the real question is whether it is worth the investment for what you'll get out of it.

To help guide decisions about whether to invest in RIE for a particular project, check out this 2018 guide that we developed with Save the Children. By adapting it to the specifics of your own evaluation project, this guide will help you identify:

• "Deal breaker" issues that would make an RIE unsafe, impossible, or highly inadvisable
• Fixable issues that need to be addressed first, before any RIE goes ahead
• Conditions that are not ideal and will require increased effort and cost if the RIE goes ahead
• Conditions that are conducive for making an RIE smooth, feasible, and cost-effective