Be the advocates of evaluation!

[Rituu B Nanda]

(The quote is borrowed from Marco's address)

Key learnings

I got to learn from diverse group of participants – from the government, academia, NGOs, UN, researchers and evaluators:

 Marco’s presentation on gender and equity focused evaluation. He began his presentation  with power walk exercise. Provoked us to think how development can affect different population groups differently.

 Then he showed us a graph depicting the difference between traditional approach and gender responsive and equity-focused evaluation approach. While the traditional approach will conclude that as national average has improved (see the yellow line in the graph below). However the equity focused approach will come to a different conclusion and recommendations driving home the point how the richest and the poorest are affected by the same intervention and the gap between the rich and the poor has increased.

 He also spoke about systemic approach to capacity building with focus on building capacities of individuals, institutes and the national system. He drew our attention to Evalpartners work on advocacy strategy and advocacy toolkit for evaluations. He urged the evaluators to be the advocates of evaluation “Evaluation: an agent of change for the world we want.” I loved this!

 Other learnings

Sensitisation on evaluation is essential both within and outside the organization. Ratna Sudarshan cited the example of gender and evaluation community to illustrate the point how community of practice can support learning and sharing.

Rashim Agrawal- We need explicit plan not only on implementation of evaluation findings but also need to know who will the evaluators have a dialogue with on evaluation findings.

Berly Leach- spoke about evidence-informed policy making. We must remember Evaluation is a technical tool in a political process. Many factors compete with evidence for attention from policy makers.

Sunita Palat- Community perspective should be taken into account while developing projects. Evaluaiton of pilot projects will help in this case.

Dr Rao- Process indicators should not be ignored in evaluation.

I presented on using strength-based approach, community life competence, in evaluation.

Key moments:

• Minister Shri Rao Inderjit Singh (Hon’ble Minister of State for Planning) inaugurated the event and Mr. Marco Segone Director - IEO, UN Women, Co-chair – UNEG, Co-chair – EvalPartners) delivered the keynote address.
• Release of the compendiuum
• Holding the torch:-) 

Photos: https://gendereval.ning.com/photo/albums/evalyear-celebrations-in-i...

[Rituu B Nanda]

Hi Patricia, on your question on strength-based approach to evaluation, I have used it with different population groups in Asia. Here is an example 

Nandi, Rajib; Nanda, Rituu B and Jugran, Tanisha. Evaluation from inside out: The experience of using local knowledge and practices to evaluate a program for adolescent girls in India through the lens of gender and equity [online]. Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Vol. 15, No. 1, Mar 2015: 38-47. 

 

[Ndriakita SOLONIONJANIRINA]

“Evaluation: an agent of change for the world we want.”

"Evaluation is a technical tool in a political process."

I realy like these ! ,thanks for sharing, waiting for next session's !!!

[Mridu Kamal]

Thanks for sharing the key learnings from the first day.It was very useful.

[Patricia Rogers]

Thanks very much for sharing these key messages from Day One of EvalWeek in India.  Will you also be sharing your presentation on strengths-based life competence approach to evaluation?  We often fall into a deficit-focused approach to evaluation and it would be good to see an alternative.