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Laura Hughston - Blog
Arnoux Mouafo Nop & Dimitri Tsona Zapzi - Article
Prof. Wangari Mwai and Prof. Catherine Ndungo - BOOK
- Understanding Gender and Identity Through The Gender Dictionary
Publisher: Bleeding Ink Scribes
RAI SENGUPTA - gender-transformative evaluation tools
This synthesis draws on evidence from 17 humanitarian evaluations across diverse crisis settings. It identifies key feminist evaluation innovations across four domains - design, methods, analysis, and ethics - illustrating how feminist principles can be embedded throughout the evaluation process. It also surfaces broader shifts required at policy, institutional, and practice levels to realise the transformative potential of feminist approaches in humanitarian contexts.
The toolkit translates these insights into applied guidance for evaluators and organisations. It provides step-by-step support across the full evaluation cycle, including planning, design, methods, analysis, ethics, and dissemination. Drawing on global feminist evaluation practice, humanitarian guidance, and gender evaluation standards, it includes adaptable tools, participatory and arts-based methods, guiding questions, and templates for field application.
Ritu Dewan & Swat Raju - Article
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In Promises & Reality 2026 Citizen’s Review of Year 2 of the NDA-III Government. Coordinated by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, June 20, 2026. pp 94-100.
UTTHAN - Research Report
Traversing the path with women farmers in their fields and in our reflections/writings, a stark observation was the sheer lack of localized and regional vocabulary and terminology to adequately capture and communicate the understanding of climate change and mitigation strategies, informed by the unique experiences and needs of small and marginal women farmers. This is what propelled our research - to examine how women farmers perceive, express, experience, and respond to climate variability across
Our Research Report centres the lived experiences, generational knowledge, and resilience strategies of small and marginal women farmers from the coastal (Bhavnagar) and hilly (Dahod & Panchmahal) regions i.e two contrasting agro-climatic zones of Gujarat. Through their voices, the study reveals exactly how climate change intersects with gender, land rights, labour burdens, and food security.
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About the job
At Includovate, we are expanding our Pacific Research & Evaluation Talent Pool and inviting researchers, evaluators, consultants, and development practitioners to join a growing network of professionals committed to creating meaningful social impact.
As a feminist research incubator and certified social enterprise, Includovate works with partners including UNICEF, UNFPA, the ILO, governments, and development organisations across 23+ countries. Our work spans gender equality, social inclusion, health, disability, youth, climate, WASH, market systems, and other development priorities.
We are particularly keen to connect with experts from:
📍 Papua New Guinea
📍 Solomon Islands
📍 Vanuatu
📍 Timor-Leste
📍 Fiji
📍 Samoa
📍 Tonga
📍 Indonesia
📍 Australia
and across the wider Pacific region.
We welcome expertise in:
✓ Research, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning
✓ Gender Equality & Social Inclusion
✓ Health & SRHR
✓ Disability Inclusion
✓ Youth Development
✓ Climate & Environment
✓ WASH
✓ Market Systems Development
✓ Governance & Community Development
Whether your expertise lies in data collection, research, evaluation, technical advisory, facilitation, or team leadership, we would love to hear from you.
By joining our Talent Pool, you become part of a trusted network of professionals who may be considered for future research, evaluation, advisory, and consulting opportunities across the Pacific region and beyond.
🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/eyF66S7H
Evaluating innovation at UNICEF
Innovation for development is the key and UNICEF has made it an organizational priority.
Why is innovation important?
The world is changing faster than ever, as are the challenges facing its most vulnerable. Conflict and displacement, disasters and climate change, and urbanization and disease outbreaks are growing complex and interrelated. Exploring new ways of delivering programmes, with new partners and new technologies, is increasingly getting recognized as being crucial to face global challenges and meet the promise of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
UNICEF believes in accountability and progress
In 2018, the Evaluation Office commissioned the Evaluation of Innovation in UNICEF Work with the purpose of generating important information for organizational learning. The main questions addressed were to understand more about values, structures, and systems related to innovation. To what extent does UNICEF’s organizational culture stimulate or incentivize innovative thinking? To what extent is space created for new ideas for ‘intrapreneurs’? How effectively does UNICEF leverage resources for innovation across offices, divisions and levels? How effectively are activities, results and good practices of innovative work documented and shared?
© UNICEF/Nigeria/SorensenA child being measured with the height/length measurement device (HLMD) in Nigeria. The HLMD Product Innovation Project aims to drive improvements to current measuring devices and development of novel products. New and/or improved products are intended to improve data quality, for use in household surveys and health facilities in programme countries. The UNICEF Supply Division employed a model of co-creation with industry through competitive procurement processes.
The objective was to assess UNICEF’s ‘fitness for purpose’ to employ innovation as a key strategy to achieve the outcomes and goals defined in the strategic plan periods 2014-2017 and 2018-2021. It also sought to provide insights on how innovation contributes to UNICEF’s goals as well as how it might contribute to increasingly effective organizational responses in the coming years.
How did we evaluate innovation at UNICEF?
We conducted the evaluation through separate yet interrelated projects:
- 13 innovation case studies (including 9 field visits) to provide evidence of specific innovations having progressed from ideation to scale;
- an organizational assessment to provide evidence of UNICEF’s ‘fitness for purpose’ to innovate as a key strategy to achieve its larger outcomes and goals; and
- a synthesis to integrate learning and generate conclusions and recommendations.
© Ethiopia/Ariel KangasniemiChildren practice counting as part of the highly specific pedagogical model of the Accelerated School Readiness (ASR) Programme in Ethiopia.
Deloitte, a multinational professional services network, and Moore Stephens, a global accountancy and advisory network of independent firms, worked with us using mixed sources and methods.
Who is this evaluation for?
The intended primary users of the evaluation are UNICEF decision makers across levels. Our ambition is to also reach out to a range of internal and external stakeholders including governments, other United Nations agencies and initiatives, development partners and implementers. Our intent is to inform decisions in an impartial manner, backed by credible evidence, and to maximize UNICEF resources for innovation.
What are our recommendations?
Firstly, UNICEF should be commended for clearly signaling its intent to use innovation as a means of delivering results for children. To achieve even greater impact, we suggest:
- developing a shared strategic vision and approach that directly addresses constraints and drives decision making;
- acting on needed structural changes by leveraging UNICEF’s unique strengths in its decentralized structure and collective capacities at centralized levels; and
- embracing a portfolio management approach to upscale all innovations of the organization.
Because we are great performers with vision and the ambition to pursue excellence together with existing and new partners. Are you with us?
The Evaluation of Innovation of UNICEF’s Work can be accessed here.
Laura Gagliardone is Evaluation Specialist at the UNICEF Evaluation Office and the author of this blog post
Beth Ann Plowman is Senior Evaluation Specialist at the UNICEF Evaluation Office and manager of this evaluation
Add a Comment
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Comment by Laura Gagliardone on August 27, 2019 at 19:43
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Hi Rituu, as management response, I would gather all innovations which happen at HQ, RO, and CO level and collect good practices for potential replication and upscale. The Evaluation encourages the adoption of a portfolio management approach. Thanks for the question, Laura
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Comment by Rituu B Nanda on August 27, 2019 at 8:34
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Thanks Laura. What is one thing you would do differently after learning from this evaluation?
© 2026 Created by Rituu B Nanda.
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