Conquering acceptability: A study of stakeholder inclusion practices in evaluation processes in francophone West African Countries

Evaluation practices in the French-speaking countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) are poorly understood and infrequently documented. Our study is a descriptive analysis that elucidates how stakeholders are conceptualized and involved in evaluation processes in WAEMU. In these countries, evaluators are concerned about the weak stakeholder involvement in evaluation activity and call for greater stakeholder engagement, juxtaposed to the challenges of doing so. This embedded mixed methods design allowed us to examine stakeholders’ involvement in evaluation processes in the French-speaking WAEMU countries. The results revealed that stakeholders were conceptualized either through structured categorization using established categories in the evaluation literature or through contextual categorization, depending on their relevance to the evaluation process and the information they can provide. Regardless of these categorizations, the primary rationale for stakeholder engagement processes was to achieve acceptable or credible results and to engage the most influential stakeholders. These findings contribute to the evaluation literature by offering a deeper understanding of stakeholder involvement in the WAEMU context.