he proliferation of development programs developed and implemented in the countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and financed either by sovereign funds or by various development aid agencies go hand in hand with the increasing number of evaluation practices. While numerous, the evaluation practices occurring in that geographical area are still insufficiently documented. Specifically, evaluation practices in terms of stakeholders’ involvement in evaluation processes remain underexplored and poorly documented suggesting a knowledge gap. Such a knowledge gap is disadvantageous to the WAEMU especially because evaluation practices significantly contribute to improving development programs implementation for better impacts. Thus, the lack of a holistic view of evaluation practices in that area is a major barrier for accurate evaluation capacity building. In this three-articles dissertation, I first address the knowledge gap in evaluation practices by documenting the development frameworks, theories, and concepts shaping evaluations in the WAEMU sphere (chapter 2). Specifically, I examine the following frameworks: Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), the poverty reduction framework, the millennium development goals (MDGs), the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and the result-based management (RBM). This exploration complements the literature on evaluations in Africa by portraying the context of evaluations in the WAEMU sphere and encourages African program makers and evaluation practitioners to reflect on evaluation concepts, development frameworks and theories, often taken for granted. Second, I investigate stakeholders’ involvement practices in the WAEMU French-speaking countries (chapter 3). The study reveals that evaluation stakeholders are conceptualized and categorized either systematically or non-systematically. Systematic categorization refers to the recognition of the existence of traditional categories of stakeholders that are used in practice while non-systematic categorization means that the classification of stakeholders is based on the search of information sources that lead evaluators to decide how to categorize stakeholders. I mainly found that obtaining acceptable evaluation results governs the pattern of stakeholder inclusion in evaluation processes, and acceptable evaluation outcomes means that the evaluation process and resulting reports meet a minimum of requirements. Additionally, this study reveals a tendency of involving powerful stakeholders who have decision-making authority at all stages of the evaluation process to ensure the evaluation report acceptability. These findings, beyond enriching the evaluation literature on evaluation practices, provides WAEMU policy makers, evaluators, and their professional associations with a better understanding of evaluation practices that are taking place in their geographical area. Moreover, I narrate the journey of designing my dissertation research (chapter 4). This narration provides a holistic and illustrative description of my process of developing an original embedded mixed-methods design and emphasizes the significance and influence of some research components: research purpose, research questions, literature review and research paradigm. This fourth chapter adds to the mixed-methods literature, providing further guidance on what to consider when deciding on a specific design of mixed-methods; thus, it contributes to an improved understanding of the selection and justification of mixed-methods designs.