Building an Evaluation Ecosystem: Perspectives from Evaluation Associations- Key Takeaways from the Webinar

On August 12, 2021, Evaluation Observatory (EO) hosted its second webinar titled Building an Evaluation Ecosystem: Perspectives from Evaluation Associations.

Voluntary Organizations of Professional Evaluators (VOPE) have played a pivotal role in raising public awareness about evaluation and its contributions to good governance, evidence-based decision-making, and capacitating civil society. By building evaluation leadership and capacity, advancing the exchange of evaluation theory and practice, and addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the evaluation profession and practices, VOPEs have led to the reframing of developmental problems. The speakers reflected on the experiences of VOPEs in South Asia and assess their role in strengthening the evaluation ecosystem at large.

This note briefly summarizes the key takeaways from the presentations by the speakers.

VOPEs in South Asia: Genesis, Progress, and the Future

Rajib Nandi
Board of Directors
Community of Evaluators – South Asia

• The initial objective of VOPEs was to develop an evaluation culture and streamline evaluation systems in the region. In South Asia, the primary driving force for evaluators was a need for solidarity amongst themselves. Raising further questions – it asked: what is the minimum baseline that qualifies one as an evaluator? As a result, the capacity building had been projected as a priority for VOPES in the region.
• The initial struggle that VOPEs faced in South Asia was building themselves as an organization – including, arriving at an appropriate governance structure, leadership, developing an organizational culture, and sustaining the organization. Finding sources of revenue to sustain the organization was another challenge since the demand was low, and unlike developed countries, evaluation capacity development was not paid.
• 2015 was a turning point at a local and global level for the VOPE movement to flourish. The launch of the International Year of Evaluation, and recognition of EvalPartners as a globally accepted platform for development stakeholders, including the Launch of EvalYouth, Launch of Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation (GPFE), and adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were all important milestones on this journey.
• With the emergence of multiple voluntary networks, the focus of the evaluation movement shifted from VOPEs to Networks, allowing for a diverse leadership in evaluation to flourish.
• Challenges that need to be resolved, include mainstreaming evidence-based program design, decolonizing evaluation, and bring evaluation in the forefront of public discourse. There is a necessity for intense dialogue between policymakers and VOPEs to take place.
• However, advantages for the evaluation movement in India include the growing youth leadership from South Asia; the recognition of the roles and relevance of voluntary bodies and networks and some early initiatives in the professionalization of evaluation.
• The next steps ahead include generating a comprehensive evaluation policy and generating ideas for sustainability and relevance of VOPEs in the current landscape.

VOPEs – An Asian Perspective

Asela Kalugampitiya
President
Sri Lanka Evaluation Association
and Asia Pacific Evaluation Association

• While South Asia takes the lead in VOPEs formation and initiation, there is an imbalance in the Asia Pacific region.
• VOPEs, especially in APAC region have issues associated with governance level, along with constraints faced in terms of resources and volunteerism.
• Professionalization of VOPEs is the need of the hour, along with the creation of a cooperative business environment. It’s a now or never moment. This effort needs to be initiated by the VOPEs themselves.
• Several VOPEs have played a constructive role in the mandates and regulatory frameworks issued by several governments to conduct evaluations.
• Competency frameworks – which describe competency domains and various indicative behaviors – have been developed by some countries, but implementation still remains an unfinished agenda.
• VOPEs should build upon the international momentum that has been generated by intergovernmental organizations for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• South Asian VOPEs should be better involved in validity building programmes with their respective governments and promote evaluation.
• Collaboration, not competition, is key to a successful future for VOPEs.

VOPEs: A Seed to Strengthen the Evaluation Ecosystem

Rashmi Agrawal
Core Group Member
Evaluation Community of India

• Strengthening the larger evaluation ecosystem requires the status and establishment of the M&E system, stakeholder engagement of actors and non-actors, the recognition of the importance of evidence-based policy interventions, professionalization, and establishing evaluation as a distinct field.
• The existence of a comprehensive evaluation ecosystem does not just mean the existence of mere institutions that conduct evaluations from time to time. It also requires setting up the mechanisms that create an appreciation for evidence-based decision-making. These include commissioning and conducting high-quality evaluations in a planned manner, following the highest national and international ethical standards, and also mechanisms to ensure that the results are utilized.
• The demand and supply for evaluations will emerge from large-scale awareness and advocacy about the importance of evaluations in the development agenda. VOPEs can act as a seed to create vast outreach, sensitization, knowledge exchange, and creating the necessary networks for targeted learning.
• However, VOPEs are faced with the challenge of their own survival and sustainability. To overcome this, VOPEs need to focus on developing their own sustainable business models and strong leadership. At the level of the larger ecosystem, the relevant stakeholders need to recognize the importance of VOPEs and give them the due they deserve.

Re-envisioning VOPEs for Impact

Ziad Moussa
Board Member
International Evaluation Academy

• VOPEs have a function in society – to uphold the rules, laws, and systems through advocacy through evaluation.
• While Monitoring and Evaluation are often used together and interchangeably; in practice, a lot more importance is given to monitoring. A shift in perspective is needed. VOPEs need to start focusing on evaluations, beyond monitoring. Evaluations are the meta view that put monitoring into perspective.
• Evaluations need to be people-centric and oriented towards results – the larger transformational processes that have had a profound and positive impact – instead of being entangled in the nitty-gritty of inputs and outputs.
• The unequal distribution of resources between players in the evaluation ecosystem leads to weakening the achievement of the larger goals we seek to achieve in evaluation at large. Therefore, core to the functioning of VOPEs needs to be a vision of anchorage, governance, and sustainability.
• VOPEs need to objectively assess their impact beyond the number of events organized. Instead, the questions they need to be asking themselves is: how is empowerment being translated through these conferences? How many programs and policies have been translated through the work of VOPEs?