Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.This study investigates a naturalistic evaluation model’s ability to assess the outcomes and impact of development interventions in a rigorous manner. The study was undertaken by means of a meta-evaluation of five evaluation projects conducted by a socio-economic development consultancy situated in Cape Town. This meta-evaluation process was based upon four evaluation quality or ‘trustworthiness’ criteria proposed by Guba and Lincoln (1989); namely, credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability. These four criteria were conceptualised, operationalised and applied to the evaluation projects under review