Open Collections

Advances in the evaluation of informal settlement upgrading in Brazil

University of British Columbia

This thesis focuses on the practice of evaluation of informal settlement upgrading projects in Brazil. The country experienced a wave of rapid urbanization over the last sixty years, with eighty-four percent of the population now living in cities. As cities lacked affordable housing options commensurate with their burgeoning populations, informal settlements proliferated. Over several decades, policy responses have evolved to promoting the upgrading of these settlements. A wide variety of strategies has been employed to address the material, social, and legal issues associated with informal settlements. The actors have been equally diverse, including federal and municipal government, NGOs, international agencies, and community-based organizations. After more than a generation of concerted trial and error in designing and implementing upgrading programs, how have monitoring and evaluation practices been put to use? Grounded in an understanding of global urbanization trends and current debates around the practice of monitoring and evaluation, this study aims to: 1. Establish the importance of monitoring and evaluation as a critical element in improving the outcomes of upgrading and building an international body of knowl¬edge around effective upgrading programs; 2. Assess the current practice of monitoring and evaluation of upgrading programs in Brazil; 3. Identify the challenges and barriers that currently impede the broad usage of such evaluation systems, and; 4. Identify the national trends that point to increased use of monitoring and evaluation in the future. This research finds that systematic monitoring and evaluation of the development outcomes of upgrading programs rarely occurs. Academics and researchers conduct a wide range of evaluative studies, though these tend to be isolated and non-continuous. International donor agencies, and more recently the federal government, require project evaluations be conducted on particular projects, though these tend to remain at the level of project outputs. Many trends, however, indicate that the nascent practice of monitoring and evaluation is attracting increased interest from policy-makers, practitioners, scholars and stakeholders. It is concluded that M&E practice will continue to be refined and experience broader application in the coming years.

Text

2013-05-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44435

Planning

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/