Bamberger, Michael J.

(b. 1939, England). Ph.D. and B.S. Sociology, London School of Economics.

Since retiring from the World Bank in 2001, Bamberger has continued to work as a consultant on international evaluation and development. During his 23 years with the World Bank, his assignments included Senior Sociologist in the Gender and Development Unit; Training Coordinator for Asia for the Economic Development Institute; and Advisor on Monitoring and Evaluation for the Urban Development Department, which included coordination of a 5-year, four-country evaluation of the social and economic impacts of low-cost housing programs. Prior to working at the World Bank, he lived in Latin America for 13 years, working with a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and involved in community development and social research in low-income urban areas throughout the continent.

His primary contributions to the field of evaluation have flowed directly from his experiences working with government agencies and NGOs in more than 60 developing countries. His work has involved integrating qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods in international evaluation; developing gender-inclusive evaluation methods, with particular attention to their application to poverty reduction strategies; helping design, analyze, and disseminate project and program evaluations in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East; and organizing training programs on monitoring and evaluation in more than 20 countries. He has been involved in developing “shoestring evaluation” methods to provide guidelines for conducting methodologically sound impact evaluations when operating with budget, time, or data constraints. His edited volume Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Research in Development Projects addresses these concerns.

His publications include Monitoring and Evaluating Social Programs in Developing Countries: A Handbook for Policymakers, Managers, and Researchers (with Joseph Valadez); two chapters in Policy Evaluation; a chapter in Evaluation for the 21st Century: A Handbook; a chapter (with Donna R. Podems) titled “Gender Issues in International Evaluation” in the Feminist Evaluation volume of New Directions in Evaluation; a chapter on gender for the World Bank Sourcebook for Poverty Reduction Strategies (with Mark Blackden, Lucia Fort, and Violetta Manoukian); and Impact Evaluation of Development Assistance: A Practical Handbook for Designing Methodologically Sound Impact Evaluations Under Budget, Time and Data Constraints (with Nobuko Fujita).

Bamberger has been actively involved with the American Evaluation Association's International and Cross-Cultural Topical Interest Group, and he has arranged for the participation of teams of evaluators from Brazil, Bangladesh, and Tunisia in AEA conferences. He was a member of the AEA Board from 1998 to 1999 and has also served on the editorial advisory boards of the American Journal of Evaluation, New Directions for Evaluation, and Sustainable Development.