On June 26, 2014 NPE’s Thursday Talks hosted USIP’s Learning and Evaluation Team, and they discussed USIP’s new Strategic Plan.
Even as organizations get better at evaluating individual projects and programs, they still struggle to link evaluation to strategic-level planning and decisionmaking. Evaluations are often conducted in an ad hoc, or opportunistic manner, without an overall strategy to feed the results of these evaluations into decisionmaking at every level.
In April 2014, USIP produced a five-year strategic plan. The Learning and Evaluation Team is currently rolling out a comprehensive evaluation approach designed to provide guidance to USIP’s leadership on whether the Institute is achieving the strategic objectives in the plan and how it can do better.
About the Speakers
Osama Gharizi, Program Officer, joined USIP’s Learning and Evaluation Team in August 2013.
He previously worked at the International Republican Institute (IRI) where he designed, managed and evaluated programs on governance, political party and civil society strengthening, and election observation. His time at IRI included directing survey research programs in Lebanon, managing monitoring and evaluation efforts in Egypt and leading IRI’s long-term election observation for the 2012 parliamentary elections in Georgia. He also worked on projects in Oman, Morocco and Jordan.
Prior to IRI, Osama worked for Transparency International’s chapter in Lebanon, the Lebanese Transparency Association. He holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, with a concentration in economic and political development.
Michael Zanchelli, Senior Program Assistant, joined USIP’s Learning and Evaluation Team in December 2013.
Michael provides support for program and knowledge management initiatives as well as learning and evaluation activities. Prior to this, Michael was the Peacebuilding Evaluation Junior Fellow based jointly at the Alliance for Peacebuilding and U.S. Institute of Peace, supporting the Peacebuilding Evaluation Consortium.
He previously supported the Knight International Journalism Fellowships as a program officer at the International Center for Journalists. He holds a M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and a B.A. in Political Science and Justice Studies from James Madison University.
Transcript and Powerpoint
Review a summary of the conversation here (link is external)
Review USIP’s Learning and Evaluation Team’s Powerpoint here