The entanglement of facts and values: An example from an agricultural project in Honduras

Abstract

The entanglement of facts and values is shown in the context of an example from an evaluation of an agricultural project in Honduras. Instead of assuming that the evaluated project corresponded to what really mattered to the people (that it was ‘relevant’ for them), the evaluation team tried to find out what people valued most and incorporated this perspective in the assessment of the project. Thus, it became a value-focused evaluation in which the evaluation team undertook to identify the local people’s priorities, their key concerns, their values through conversation with them and the programme staff who were involved in the implementation. These conversations played a critical role in completing the evaluation.