The MACBETH approach for multi-criteria evaluation of development projects on cross-cutting issues

The European Union’s efforts for poverty reduction are based on the principle of Sustainable Human Development. Meeting the terms of this principle entails the consideration of aspects of general interest, known as “cross-cutting issues”, at all levels of intervention. Cross-cutting issues comprise issues like human rights, gender equity, environmental concern, democracy as a social value, or the participation and empowerment of the beneficiaries of development. These issues concern social phenomena that are difficult to isolate in time or capture empirically, causing operational difficulties when projects are subjected to evaluation. Traditional methods of project evaluation, such as Cost Benefit Analysis or the Logic Framework, struggle to incorporate impacts that are difficult to measure or estimate in terms of indicators or monetary value. Therefore, in the field work at a rural development programme located in Bolivia, a need arose spontaneously to find and implement an approach that, complementary to traditional methods of project evaluation, could allow project managers to keep an eye on project performances in terms of cross-cutting issues. This article describes how the MACBETH multicriteria approach was implemented in practice, in order to help an important rural development programme build a project evaluation tool, taking into account cross-cutting issues through a series of interviews and decision conferences attended by specialists and the programme staff.