Southern Perspective on Development Education: Evaluating the RORG Network in Norway

"In recent years, agencies working on development-related issues in the South and North have experimented with new forms of exchange and relationships between their own organisations and their partners and experts in the South. This desire for change has sprung primarily from the public demand for development agencies to improve their performance."

The author reviews a case where a group of Norwegian development education NGOs, known as the RORG Network, is evaluated by a South African consultancy, VDM. The purpose of the evaluation is to improve global education.

His article presents some of the outcomes of the evaluation. His observations include:

• the lack of a clear definition of the concept of development education in the North;
• the absence of a proper and explicit teaching methodology for development education;
• the lack of involvement - let alone the sustained presence - of the South in planning, implementing and evaluating development education;
• only marginal reference to the Millennium Development Goals and the absence of any indication as to how development education could help achieve them;
• doubts as to whether development education is a genuine initiative promoting awareness or change, or whether it merely serves to lend legitimacy to the government's development policy.

The evaluators conclude that the process was "challenging and worthwhile" and include a summary of lessons learned.

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Source: Capacity.org