History

Overview – History

The Importance of Evaluation Associations and Networks

By Jean Serge Quesnel

Download the document here (.PDF).

Application for a Planning Meeting during the summer of 2001

“Towards the Creation of an International Organization forCooperation in Evaluation”
This document is a paper presented by Arnold J. Love, Ph. D. and is a proposal for the next meeting of the organizing committee. It presents an excellent history of the IOCE from 1998 until 2000.

Download the document here(.DOC).

1999 International Panel
“The Presidents Panel: One Year Later” held at the 1999 conference of the American Evaluation Association, Nov 3-6, Orlando FL 

The President’s Panel of the AEA 1999 conference in Orlando Fl. focused on international developments in evaluation organization. In attendance were: Craig Russon, who chaired the sessions, Alberto Silvani of the Italian Evaluation Association, Michael Bamberger of the World Bank, Donna Mertens from the American Evaluation Association, James Mugaju from the Rwandan Evaluation Network, Jean-Rene Bibeau from the Canadian Evaluation Society, Arnold Love, who was the moderator of this panel, and also David Nevo who is with the Israeli Association of Program Evaluation.

In the fall of 1997, a discussion was held on the XC-Eval listserv about the international nature of the evaluation profession. Shortly after the discussion, the International & Cross-Cultural Evaluation topical interest group sent invitations to the presidents of nine national evaluation associations inviting them to sit on a panel to discuss the creation of a worldwide community of evaluation. In addition to the presidents, the TIG designated one of its co-chairs to sit on the panel to represent the interests of developing countries and regions of the world that did not have formal evaluation associations.

The panel took place on November 6 during the plenary session of the Chicago 98 AEA conference. The organizations represented on the panel were the African Evaluation Association, the American Evaluation Association, the Italian Evaluation Association, the Australasian Evaluation Society, the Canadian Evaluation Society, and the United Kingdom Evaluation Society. Dr. Arnold Love, the former president of the Canadian Evaluation Society and principal organizer of the International Evaluation Conference that was held in Vancouver in 1995, moderated the panel.

Position papers had been submitted in advance by the organizations represented on the panel as well as the European Evaluation Society and the Malaysian Evaluation Society. The position papers and a summary of the presidents’ panel are contained in this document, entitled “Creating a World Wide Evaluation Community” that was published in the Occasional Paper Series of the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University. One of the outcomes of the panel was the decision, made by the presidents, to move ahead slowly with this initiative. However, questions remained about the organizational structure, the unit of membership, governance and procedures, and financial support. The distinguished panelists discussed the challenges and the progress that their organizations have made in the year since the original presidents panel. Then Arnold Love presented on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant that has been made to further this initiative.