News

UNICEF and partners gather 260 participants in two webinars to discuss the
role of evaluation in development

Within the UNICEF/UNDP/WFP/UNIFEM/ILO/IOCE/DevInfo series of monthly live webinars on "National Evaluation Capacity Development” (to access the full programme with authors of the new book “From policies to results. Developing national capacities for country M&E systems”, 260 participants from all over the world joined the first two webinars to discuss the role of evaluation to ensure meaningful and lasting development results.

The first webinar with Saraswathi Menon, Director, Evaluation Office, UNDP, and Chair, UN Evaluation Group, and Finbar O’Brien, Director, Evaluation
Office, UNICEF, focused on “the Role of the UN in fostering national ownership and capacities in evaluation”. Saraswathi Menon described the
important progress done by the evaluation function so far. However, she also acknowledged its potential is not fully realized to promote public
action. In order to do so, Finbar O’Brien explained evaluation should shift from being donor-led toward being country-led, thus serving the information needs of programme countries. Marco Segone, in his concluding remarks, highlighted the main roles of the UN in fostering national ownership, including by strengthening national evaluation capacities of national and local governments, as well as Civil Society Organizations, to demand, plan, conduct and use evaluations. The recording of the webinar is available here.

The second webinar with Michael Quinn Patton, Founder and Director, Utilization-focused evaluation, and former President of the American Evaluation Association, and Marco Segone, Systemic management, UNICEF Evaluation Office, and Senior advisor to the IOCE Executive Board and former Vice President, focused on “Future trends in evaluation”. Michael Quinn Patton spoke about six future trends, notably Globalization of the profession; Evaluation as a transdiscipline; Increased political importance of M&E; Growing emphasis on capacity-building and essential skills; Debate about methods, including the Gold standard debate; and using systems thinking and complexity concepts. Marco Segone further developed the debate on growing importance of evaluation capacity development. He presented a framework to strengthen national capacities for country-led M&E systems that addresses both demand and supply side, while strengthening the enabling environment, as well as institutional and individual capacities. The recording of the webinar is available here.

We are looking forward to the next webinar in September with Caroline Heider, Director, WFP Evaluation Office, and Craig Russon, Senior Evaluation Specialist, ILO Evaluation Office.

UNICEF, IOCE and DevInfo launch MyM&E, a new interactive web 2.0 tool
to strengthen national capacities for country M&E systems

UNICEF, IOCE and DevInfo, in partnership with several major stakeholders, have launched MyM&E, accessible at www.mymande.org.

MyM&E is an interactive web 2.0 platform to facilitate social networking and strengthening national capacities on Country-led M&E systems worldwide. In addition to being a learning resource, the platform is a valuable tool for creating a global community, as well as identifying good practices and lessons learned, on Country-led M&E systems.

Through MyM&E users are able to:

• add to growing knowledge by contributing to the WikiEvaluation and uploading new documents and videos;
• comment on existing articles, videos and webinars;
• interact in real time through webinars and blogs;
• be part of a professional M&E social community by creating their own social profile in LinkedIn
• learn from selected practical handbooks, manuals and books accessible in the virtual library;
• access technical advice through the practical “how to” guidance on how to plan, conduct and use M&E systems and evaluations;
• search an inventory of training delivered by different institutions all over the world; and,
• post their CV (in the case of evaluators offering services) as well as their own vacancies (in the case of institutions looking for evaluators) in international evaluation rosters.

For additional information, please get in contact with Marco Segone, UNICEF Evaluation Office, at msegone@unicef.org.

CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
to host a regional center in Africa

CLEAR (Regional Centers for Learning on Evaluation and Results) is a multiregional initiative, whose goal is to contribute to strengthening the monitoring, evaluation, and results-based management capacity of countries and their governments to achieve development outcomes. CLEAR will support academic/training institutions based in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia to develop and provide demand-driven, cost-effective, and sustainable capacity development services in monitoring, evaluation, and performance management. CLEAR will support the centers for fi ve years, with the expectation that the centers will begin developing other sources of revenue during this period.

CLEAR is inviting expressions of interest (EOIs) from existing academic/training institutions based in Africa to host the Africa regional center. CLEAR expects to contribute approximately $1 million per year for the first three years and lesser amounts in the remaining two years to help the selected institution(s) achieve international quality standards in the areas covered by the program and to reach fi nancial self-suffi ciency within that period.

The Africa center will be selected through a two-stage process. Institutions will be shortlisted based on the EOIs they provide. The shortlisted institutions will be invited to present full proposals for the fi nal selection. The selected center will provide demand-based capacity development and technical and advisory services to governments, civil society, and other potential clients. The deadline to submit EOIs is March 30, 2010.

Further information on CLEAR and instructions for submitting the EOI are available at http://www.worldbank.org/ieg/clear. Requests for further information should be sent to clear@worldbank.org, attention: Ms. Ximena Fernandez Ordonez, Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), the World Bank Group.

Download the CLEAR Description for more information on the CLEAR initiative.

CLEAR Africa is supported by the AfDB, SIDA, DfID, and the World Bank Group, with the Secretariat currently housed in IEG.

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EVALUATION / ReLAC 3º CONFERENCE
San Jose, Costa Rica, 28-30 July 2010

Evaluation and Citizen Participation in Latin America: Debates and Possibilities in a Context of Social Reforms and Political Changes

Invitation
The University of Costa Rica (UCR) and the Latin American Evaluation Monitoring and Systematization Network in Latin America and the Caribbean (ReLAC) announce the organization of the International Congress on Evaluation and ReLAC IIIº conference to be held from 28 to 30 July, 2010, in San Jose, Costa Rica.

The International Congress and the Third Conference are integrating their work agendas, creating an ample space for analysis and discussion on experiences, trends, opportunities and new challenges of evaluation in Latin America.

The Congress and III ReLAC Conference will be held at a new regional and international context. First, the effects of international crises have aggravated social problems that require new and better policies throughout the cycle by integrating the practice of monitoring and evaluation (M & E) in the development organizations. For another, the international consensus reached at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness of Development Cooperation (Accra, September 2008) and the second meeting of Assessment (Costa Rica, 2009), calls us to promote the greatest possible link evaluating social participation and design effective policies to solve identified problems.

The Congress and III Conference, are designed to analyze these problems considering different dimensions and perspectives. Conceptual perspectives for understanding the reform processes that are experienced in the region will be discussed, as well as the new space for evaluation and monitoring.

The central objective of the event is to contribute to the professionalization of the evaluation and development of innovative and effective strategies to link evaluation with development objectives and the ongoing reforms in the countries of the region.

The three major themes to work are:

• Evaluation and Systematization in Latin America: current status, trends and prospects

• New features and institutionalization of the evaluation

• Professionalization of evaluation in Latin America

The organizers will receive with great interest the presentations, communications and posters addressing topics that are part of the contents of the defined themes (deadline: 31/03/2010). Proposals of workshops are also welcome (deadline: 31/04/2010). The official language of the conference is Spanish.

For general information write to contacto_relac@yahoo.com and visit www.relacweb.org.

IPDET Registration Announcement
Information on the 2010 International Program for Development Evaluation Training is now available at www.ipdet.org and on-line registration is open.

This year marks IPDET’s tenth-year anniversary and we are very excited by the way this year’s program is taking shape. Once again this year, the Core program will offer eighty hours of instruction and learning in the fundamentals of development evaluation. Participants will also have more than 25 workshops to choose from in the two weeks that follow the Core, including several dynamic new workshops that will be of interest to you and your organization:

• Building Evaluation within Ministries: Lessons Learned and Best Practices in Industrialized and Developing Countries – taught by Frederic Martin, co-president of the Institute for Development in Economics and Administration
• Assessing Program Impacts When a Statistical Evaluation Design Is Not Possible – taught by Michael Bamberger, consultant and author; and Frans Leeuw, professor, University of Maastricht and director, National Justice Research Center at the Hague
• Evaluating Humanitarian Assistance – taught by John Cosgrave and Margie Buchanan-Smith, both experienced consultants and evaluators of international humanitarian aid
• Improving Performance Assessment, Evaluation, and Learning in Foundations and Not-for-Profit Grant-Making Organizations – taught by Nancy McPherson, director of evaluation, Rockefeller Foundation and Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy Governance, Corruption and Development Evaluation: Role of Indicators and Empirical Tools by Dani Kaufman, Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development program, Brookings Institution

Applicants can attend from one to four weeks. Participants have told us that they want the workshops to be longer and more in-depth, so this year we have increased the duration of many of the workshops. In addition to intensive learning in large and small groups, the program will be packed with special guest speakers, networking events, simulations with guest evaluation specialists, participant roundtables, poster board sessions and more.

Visit the website for more information about the program and our outstanding group of world-class instructors drawn from four different continents. Stay tuned as we will be posting more information about IPDET’s 10th year anniversary events as it becomes available.

Applicants: Note that you must register on the IPDET website www.ipdet.org before you can log in and access the on-line application form. If you experience difficulties with the application process, contact Mary Dixon, the IPDET Registrar, at mary_dixon@carleton.ca.

Deadlines:
For scholarships: March 19, 2010
All applications: May 10, 2010

IPDET is a collaboration of the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank and Carleton University. A limited number of scholarships is available, thanks to the generous support of several donor organizations.

Call for Proposals: American Evaluation Association 2010 Conference
November 10-14, 2010, San Antonio, Texas

The American Evaluation Association invites evaluators from around the world to attend its annual conference to be held Wednesday, November 10, through Saturday, November 13, 2010 in San Antonio, Texas. We'll be convening at the lovely Grand Hyatt San Antonio, right in the heart of the vibrant city and adjacent to the Riverwalk's nightlife, restaurants, and strolling grounds. Discounted hotel reservations will be available in March.

AEA's annual meeting is expected to bring together approximately 2500 evaluation practitioners, academics, and students, and represents a unique opportunity to gather with professional colleagues in a collaborative, thought-provoking, and fun atmosphere.
The conference is broken down into 44 Topical Strands that examine the field from the vantage point of a particular methodology, context, or issue of interest to the field as well as the Presidential Strand highlighting this year's Presidential Theme of Evaluation Quality. Presentations may explore the conference theme or any aspect of the full breadth and depth of evaluation theory and practice.

Proposals are due by midnight in the Eastern time zone, on Friday, March 19, 2010.

Visit the AEA 2010 Conference website for more information: http://www.eval.org/eval2010/default.asp

Announcement

ReLAC is planning its third Conference for the next July (27-29), in San José (Costa Rica). We are working together with the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) for this event, which will be at the same time its first International Congress of Evaluation

More information will be posted when it becomes available.

Welcome to the Evaluation E-News from the UNDP Evaluation Office!

Dear all,

We are pleased to present this new issue of the Evaluation E-News
featuring the UNDP May Board Meeting, and the new Joint Evaluation of
the Role and Contribution of the UN System in the Republic of South
Africa . We hope you continue to find this newsletter useful and do
let us know what you would also like to see in the future editions.... More/plus >>

African Development Bank Group /
Group de la Banque africaine de développement
Opportunities in operations evaluation at the African Development Bank /
Opportunités en évaluation des opérations à la Banque africaine de développement
Updated: Monday, December 8, 2008 01:54 PM
Additional information / Plus de renseignements... More/plus >>

Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bankl
Updated: Wednesday, August 29, 2007   4:13 PM
Operations evaluation has changed from the beginning of evaluation activities in the
Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 1978. Initially, the focus of evaluation was on
assessing whether implementation was consistent with the intentions reflected in
the appraisal of a project, and the extent to which the project achieved the expected
economic and social benefits. Operations evaluation now shapes decision making
throughout the project cycle and in ADB as a whole. Independent Evaluation at the
Asian Development Bank, published in 2007, offers more than an account of the
early steps of operations evaluation. It describes recent accomplishments and
looks to the future.    

For more information visit:
www.adb.org/Evaluation/documents/Independent-Evaluation/Independent-Evaluation-ADB.asp

Editor for UNICEF South Asia Evaluation Journal
Updated: Monday, March 5, 2007  11:28 AM
This Terms of Reference is the basis of a consultancy to assist in the editing
and design of a South Asia Evaluation Journal...     More>>

New Evaluation Association – Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association (ANZEA)
Updated: Tuesday, December 19, 2006  9:20 AM
The web site will be operational by the end of December at http://www.anzea.org.nz/

ReLAC web site launched at  www.relacweb.org.
Updated: Tuesday, December 19, 2006  9:20 AM

Evaluation of Sustainability – European Conference & Training Courses (EASY-ECO)
Updated: Wednesday, November 8, 2006  11:54 AM
Newsletter November 2006 featuring training courses and resources ...  More>>

Joint UNICEF/IPEN Evaluation Working Paper on "New trends in development evaluation"
Updated: Monday, October 23, 2006  11:54 AM
The joint UNICEF/IPEN Evaluation Working Paper on "New trends in development evaluation" ...  More>>

IDEAS-RELAC Joint Conference: Concept Paper
May 3-5, 2007
Updated: Monday, October 23, 2006  11:44 AM
We are pleased to advise that a concept paper is now available, giving details...  More>>

Resources for Evaluation and Social Research Methods
Updated: Monday, October 23, 2006  11:34 AM
This site links to on line books, manuals and guides about evaluation and social research methods,  More>>

What Constitutes Credible Evidence in Evaluation and Applied Research?
Updated: Monday, October 23, 2006  11:14 AM
Dear friends and colleagues, If you were not able to come to the 2006 Claremont Symposium  More>>

AfrEA 2007 Announced
Fourth Annual AfrEA Conference, Niamey, Niger (West Africa)
January 17 to 21 2007
Updated:  Tuesday, October 10, 2006  03:49 PM
Evaluate Development, Develop Evaluation – a promising network for Africa's future More>>

World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) Newsletter (Aug 2006)
Updated:  Sunday, September 10, 2006  01:49 PM
Read the first issue of the Independent Evaluation Group’s newsletter. More>>

Pakistan Evaluation Network (PEN) releases marketing brochure
Updated:  Sunday, September 10, 2006  01:24 PM
Pakistan Evaluation Network - PEN is a professional network that has been initiated in 2004 to strengthen building a socially responsible society by More>>

ReLAC Executive Committee
Updated: Friday, October 28, 2005 07:2a9 PM
The ReLAC Executive Committee now has a contact address... More >>

Argentinian Evaluation Network
Updated: Friday, October 28, 2005 07:28 PM
A meeting was held in April this year in the premises of the University Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires, which was attended by Osvaldo Feinstein as guest participant and exhibitor. More >>

Meeting for the establishment of a Steering Group for the Salvadorean Monitoring and Evaluation Network
Updated: Friday, October 28, 2005 07:24 PM
Additional information... More >>

EASY-ECO 2005-2007: Evaluation of Sustainability
Updated: Friday, July 15, 2005 08:57 PM
European Conferences and Training Courses. More >>

Agence intergouvernementale de la Francophonie
Updated: Friday, July 15, 2005 08:14 PM
http://evaluation.francophonie.org    More >>

Regional Activities and Expectations of the IOCE Board - 2004
Updated: Monday, November 01, 2004 03:10 PM
As you will have seen from reports on the Kuala Lumpur and Bonn meetings we are at last moving forward on the IOCE project. More >>

Les Journées francophones de l’évaluation
Updated: Monday, November 01, 2004 03:05 PM
The Agence intergouvernementale de la Francophonie (AIF) is an agency formed by the Organisation intergouvernementale de la Francophonie, made up of 51 states and countries which share the French language. The leaders of member states and countries meet every two years. More >>