International Year of Evaluation 2015, “Evaluation torch” to be passed over to events around the world:

[Asela Kalugampitiya]

International Year of Evaluation 2015

“Evaluation torch” to be passed over to events around the world:

As we get ready to launch 2015, the International Year of Evaluation (EvalYear), we are inviting evaluators, managers  and policy makers from all over the world to celebrate evaluation and  the way we have linked with one another to promote the demand, supply and use of equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluation in policy and program decisions. We have created below master calendar, of gatherings on evaluation during 2015 in every part of the world. The closing gathering of 2015 will be the Global Evaluation Week at the Parliament of Nepal in November 2015, and it will echo and celebrate messages shared throughout EvalYear. All evaluator gatherings are important, large and small, in every country where our profession is exercised and can be useful to our societies.

During EvalYear, we will carry a virtual “2015 evaluation” torch to link the discussions that will happen all over the world around the four selected themes for EvalYear:

• Identifying the key future priorities for the global evaluation community to launch the 2016-2020 Global Evaluation Agenda;
• Bridging the gap between the evaluation community (supply side) and the policy makers community  (demand side), including Parliamentarians,  to ensure good quality, equity-focused and gender-responsive  evaluations are demanded and used in policy making;
• Mainstreaming equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluations in Sustainable Development Goals at international level, and in national development strategies at national level;
• Developing equity-focused and gender-responsive National Evaluation policies.

The “2015 evaluation torch” that can/should be customized to the local culture/language/context will symbolize that we are united in strengthening evaluation, and specifically:

• We honour the same ideals of social equity and gender equality in evaluation
• We strive for excellence in evaluation
• We carry messages (the torch) traveling from evaluation summit to evaluation summit, and the flame grows stronger with the messages each site adds to it
• We celebrate our profession, our partnership and 2015 International Year of Evaluation

We encourage every evaluation gathering to include:

1. A ceremony of bringing in the Evaluation Torch (created locally in each gathering, or using/adapting the attached virtual one)
2. Use the evaluation torch to brand the festivities you create locally—e.g. agenda, messages, slides, etc
3. A process of discussing messages about the four EvalYear themes received from previous evaluation gatherings, and generating new messages to share with following evaluation gatherings 
4. A ceremony for passing on the Evaluation Torch to other evaluation gatherings

We encourage you to let everybody know about events that you plan to do during EvalYear via EvalYear 2015 map at https://evalyear.crowdmap.com/ , as well as by communicating them to Asela Kalugampitiya, EvalPartners Executive Coordinator, at [e-mail]

We also encourage you to take pictures and videos to share along with your messages, and post them at EvalYear 2015 map at https://evalyear.crowdmap.com/  or send us links as you upload them on your websites and/or YouTube, so we can, in turn, share them with our EvalPartners community.

Let’s get ready for EvalYear 2015!

Marco Segone and Natalia Kosheleva, EvalPartners Co-chairs

[Asela Kalugampitiya]

Please find the Evaluation torch logo attached.