DESK REVIEW

A desk review or documentary review is an essential part of any major M&E activity. In a major programme
evaluation, a desk review phase may even take place as a preliminary discrete exercise and will feed into
designing the evaluation ToR.

Even in a rapid assessment in a humanitarian crisis, a comparable exercise of reviewing existing information
will take place, though it will often rely as heavily on key informants as documents.

USE AND IMPORTANCE

A desk review is a useful way to:

help design a study or evaluation by identifying key issues and questions;

learn about the context of the programme to be evaluated;
learn about the original programme design its history, philosophy, rationale, goals, objectives,
strategies and how it evolved;
answer some evaluation questions;
cross-check other data or provide a standard of comparison; and
provide a baseline for longitudinal and before/after comparisons.

It is also critical for:

avoiding duplication of previous studies and

focusing new data collection on issues of concern or areas requiring verification.

Limitations

Written documents do not necessarily provide comprehensive or correct answers to specific problems, as
they may contain errors, omissions, or exaggerations. They are simply one form of evidence, and should be
used carefully and with other types of data.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Relevant existing documentation that can be consulted during a desktop review include:

Internal documentation from the organisations involved

relevant policy documents, mission statements, and organisational strategy papers

relevant research and discussion papers, including evaluations of similar programmes
organisational charts
planning documents, such as project proposals and funding proposals
project reports, including donor reports, field trip notes, activity schedules, diaries, participant utilisation
records as well as other relevant programme reports
relevant correspondence and meeting minutes
previous reviews or evaluation reports on the programme to be examined, including annual and midterm
reports, and surveys and special studies.

Monitoring systems

Monitoring information can show how well a project is managed by providing information on:

process indicators (e.g. number of people trained, mothers seen, children treated).
impact indicators (e.g. from records, surveys, or reviews), which can be used to assess changes over
time.
Desk review - Page 1/2
External documentation

Relevant statistics and background information

Reports from other agencies involved in the work
Relevant government policy and planning documents
External studies or surveys that are relevant (for example, carrying out a literature search on the topic)

BASIC QUESTIONS FOR MANAGING DESK REVIEW

Questions For Design Of Desk Review

INFO What information is needed?

NEEDS

Where can it be found?

What computer databases can be used to search for relevant

literature/data?

SOURCES Who could be aware (key individual, key departments and agencies) of
relevant documentation and information?

What information is available from monitoring systems and previous reviews

or evaluations?

How will that information be analysed? What analytical framework will be

used?

What skills, experience, or technical support will be required to obtain and

CAPACITIE analyse the information?
S AND
SKILLS What sort of awareness, skills and languages will be needed to gather
information? Consider what analytical frameworks and tools should be used
(specifically developed for the evaluation or more generic tools such as
logical frameworks).

Questions For The Reviewer And Critique Of Results

What are the limitations of the existing information?

Check:

Focus
CRITIQUE Sources
Authors (reliability/interests, agenda)
Underlying assumptions
Coverage
Methodology employed,
Timeliness
Etc.

Desk review - Page 2/2