Terms of whose reference? Commissioning, power, and the distribution of evaluative learning in development

Development evaluations are typically governed through Terms of Reference (ToRs) that define purposes, intended users, key questions, and deliverables before empirical inquiry begins. Although often treated as administrative documents, ToRs function as upstream governance texts that shape whose learning, use, and improvement evaluations are designed to serve. Existing evaluation-use theories-including utilization-focused evaluation, evaluation influence theory, and transformative evaluation-examine how evaluation findings are taken up but rarely interrogate whose interests are structurally encoded at the commissioning stage. This article addresses that gap and introduces a distributive analytical lens organized around three questions-whose learning, whose use, and whose improvement-and proposes an Upstream-Midstream-Downstream Learning Model situating evaluation commissioning within the hierarchical architecture of international development. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of 48 ToRs from multilateral organizations, bilateral donors, and international NGOs, the study finds that learning and use are overwhelmingly concentrated among upstream commissioners and midstream implementers. Institutional actors are named as primary intended users in the large majority of ToRs examined, while communities appear in that role in a small minority. Participatory language is largely confined to data-collection methods rather than to commissioning sections defining purpose, users, or accountability. The article discusses implications for evaluation governance and decolonial evaluation practice.