Evidence of Development

Abstract: Development organizations work within a complex system where they have to show their expertise and ensure that their interventions have a positive impact, while simultaneously prioritize different accountabilities to both their patrons, clients and themselves. This case study of the Danish Red Cross Youth is focused on their participatory youth-leadership project in rural Zimbabwe; particularly the design and development of the project. The study is concerned with how the organization uses evidence and other types of knowledge within their work, and how their different accountabilities affect their engagement with evidence. The research shows that the organization uses not just evidence but also experience in their work. Through the monitoring and evaluation they work to create context specific evidence in order to show the impact of their work, but they also manipulate their experience to resemble evidence in order to appear evidence-based. Furthermore, the organization prioritizes their accountabilities differently at different stages of the project and for different purposes. This has a direct impact on how they use the evidence and experience they have.