Evaluation processes cover the entire cycle from planning to managing evaluations, including stakeholder capacity building and preparing for ex ante and ex post assessments. It also entails conducting evaluations throughout the programming period and effectively communicating their outcomes.

Evaluations can be executed either as comprehensive assessments, which appraise the achievements of the entire CAP Strategic Plan, or as thematic evaluations. The latter are more focused, concentrating specific topics of interest to the stakeholders involved in the evaluation.

Evaluation methods are techniques and tools for collecting and analysing data and information to describe, explain or predict the relevance of an intervention to the needs it seeks to address, the coherence between its constituents and with other programmes, and its effectiveness and efficiency in achieving the corresponding policy objectives.

No single method can be used to address all the tasks implied in this description. Based on the scope of each evaluation, different methods may be needed to reach judgments that are as robust as possible to support solid policy recommendations. Having an adequate understanding of what each method is, its advantages and disadvantages, and under which conditions and how it can be applied may help evaluation stakeholders select the methods that are suitable for each evaluation.

Evaluation methods can be qualitative, quantitative or combinations of the two (mixed methods). Qualitative methods tend to focus less on numbers and collect and analyse information about how individuals make sense of their experiences, in their own minds, and in their own words.

Quantitative methods collect and analyse numerical data to summarise, calculate averages, find patterns, make predictions and test causal associations, as well as generalise results to wider populations.