Seeing the Wood for the Trees: Summarising Results

International development CSOs have come under increasing pressure from donors in recent years to improve how they demonstrate and report on results. Most CSOs recognise the need to better summarise and communicate their results at a global level to their supporters and general public in a way that is both supported by the evidence and meaningful to the reader. This is true in the case of Danish CSOs with framework agreements, when multiple snapshots of change at project level are seen by donors as an incomplete and insufficient summary of the results of strategic funding.

This short paper will try to illustrate the ways in which Danish CSOs can continue to present and improve a summary picture of the positive changes they have contributed to and when aggregation may or may not be appropriate. The paper draws upon the experience of Danish and international CSOs in reporting their results. It does not attempt to be a comprehensive account of all the issues but rather a prompt to further discussion among Danish CSOs.