JEAIL > Volume 2(2); 2009 > Articles
Research Paper
Published online: November 30, 2009
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2009.2.2.06

Rule of Law Indicators in Context: An Empirical Evaluation of GTZ Legal Advisory in Beijing

Vishnu Sridharan
Rule of Law Consultant in Beijing
650 S. 43rd Street, Boulder, CO 80305 USA
Corresponding Author: vishnus@stanford.edu

ⓒ Copyright YIJUN Institute of International Law
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Much has been written about the general ability (or lack thereof) of international development organizations to effectively monitor and evaluate the impact of their Rule of Law projects on the ground. However, less research has focused on particular development organizations' methods of project evaluation, the politics behind them and their strengths and weaknesses. This paper offers such an analysis of the evaluation methods of GTZ Legal Advisory in Beijing. After describing the work of GTZ in general and its Legal Advisory in particular, the paper offers a detailed evaluation of the tools that it uses to gauge the impact of its projects on the ground. What is gained from such a particularized analysis is a deeper understanding of both the donor politics and organizational tradeoffs inherent in monitoring and evaluation decisions, two factors often given insufficient attention in more theoretical discussions.

Keywords : Rule of Law, GTZ, Monitoring and Evaluation, China, International Development.

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