How Does the Newly Added DAC Evaluation Criterion “Coherence” Contribute to Achieving the SDG Target 4.c for Teachers?

The OECD DAC’s Network on Development Evaluation (EvalNet) adapted definitions for the five DAC evaluation criteria and added one new criterion – coherence – in 2018 to advance the 2030 Agenda. Quality education (SDG4) provides various synergy effects to all other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Besides SDG4’s contribution to the other SDGs, it is necessary to understand the positive and negative interactions between SDG4 and other goals and targets for more effective project formulation and implementation. This research aims to understand how to practice the concept of coherence for achieving target 4.c (teacher professional development) by teachers via scoring the key interactions based on the ICSU framework and conducting a meta-evaluation of the JICA ex-post evaluations of INSET projects. To achieve target 4.c, it was found that at least 27 targets have positive interactions; however, they are seldom checked in an ex-post evaluation. To ensure that key interactions for producing the project outcomes are assessed in evaluation, mapping out tradeoffs and synergies across a matrix is important policy analytical work that can provide a broad view of the challenges of the 2030 Agenda.