Every year, the American Evaluation Association (AEA) brings together evaluators, practitioners, and data enthusiasts to discuss the state of evaluation theory and practice. This year, in Denver, Colorado, participants were asked to think about how evaluation affects the systems in which they operate and to envision how evaluation can bring a more sustainable future.
We were reminded that actors within a system are interdependent and can influence one another in significant ways. The sheer number of INGOs representatives at the AEA is a reflection of just how much international development organizations are embracing and seeking to improve monitoring and evaluation.
Evaluating Governance and Democracy
The evaluation community has embraced our sector by approving the creation of “Governance and Democracy” TIG (which functions as a community of practice and can be followed on Twitter through #DEMTIG). This has reenergized our sector; it challenges practitioners to use the next year to connect with peers more intentionally, think critically about creating Governance and Democracy Evaluation Standards, and share evaluation practice and data more thoughtfully and transparently.
The formation of the TIG is an important achievement that required many months of hard work from a group of dedicated individuals; The group’s founders championed evaluative thinking even when most practitioners felt that that the contributions towards governance and democracy could not be measured. DME for Peace salutes you and is excited to be able to bring its members more news on this TIG as it evolves and develops.
INGOs at the AEA
The international not-for profit community also reflected on the systems that they are creating and the organizational cultures that bind how M&E becomes operational. During the session “Towards More Equitable Evaluation Capacity Development: Local, Regional and Global lessons learned” INGOs reflected on the years of work that it has taken them to create organizational-wide indicators and the ups-and downs of this process, particularly for large multi-sectoral organizations.
Later in the conference the panel, “Minimum Standards for M&E in INGOs, and Models for Auditing Them” met to discuss how organizations were striving to achieve minimal M&E standards and the role that organizational culture plays in uptaking these standards. All the organizations (including Search for Common Ground) acknowledged that there are plenty of manuals, models, and knowledge of M&E – but what is needed is organizational shifts that enable leaders to have ownership over M&E processes.
To shift organizational culture, M&E advisors must go back to the basics and communicate more intentionally why and how achieving M&E standards will help meet other organizational targets (such as fundraising goals), and personal professional goals across all levels of the organization. As Ted Kniker from Mission Measurement reminded the audience, in order for M&E advisors to be more effective they must embody the wise words of Socrates: “the secret of change is to focus all your energy not in fighting the old, but building the new”
There were many sessions worth exploring this year, including important conversations around the Evaluability of Peacebuilding (click here to see a tool overview), the ICRW Violence Against Women Toolkit, Evaluating Online Media more Effectively, Learning about RCTs in Peacebuilding, and getting an update from USAID’s Complexity Aware Monitoring Tools Project. A theme from the DME for Peace Blog, and perhaps one of the more practical sessions was data visualization gurus, Anna K. Emery and Stephanie Evergreen’s presentation of their Data Visualization Checklist – the popularity of this session is a reminder that we must put as much time into presenting our data as we do in creating monitoring and evaluation systems, including data collection tools.
Big Tent M&E
As the organizers of the conference closed the last session they challenged us to return to vision. What will be our vision for evaluation as part of a sustainable future? There is no doubt that as M&E practice are further institutionalized into organizations, this will lead to deeper integration and collaboration with other departments, including assistance in technology from IT, and graphic design from Communications. As organizations move away from just one individual responsible for M&E and see the value of teams of people working to improve M&E, we will have to build a bigger tent to fit diverse interests that engage with and revolve around evaluation.
For those that have been the ‘lone solider’ advocating for M&E, this new bigger tent may be threating at first but navigating the dynamics will be the only way to institutionalize monitoring and evaluation practice. As evaluation is finally accepted in the governance, human rights, and peacebuilding sector and minimal standards are met, practitioners and technicians will have to focus their attention on ensuring that we address the learning needs of a diverse work-force.
2015: The Year of Evaluation
2015 has been declared The Year of Evaluation. In this historical year, the AEA will meet near the site of the 1893 World Fair in Chicago. The theme for next year’s conference is “Exemplary Evaluations in a Multicultural World: Learning from Evaluation Successes Around the Globe.” This theme calls to the international development evaluation community to present the-best-of the best in terms of evaluation. It asks us to reflect the enabling factors, actions and drivers of success, while continuing to challenge us to be more intentional about ensuring that the diverse culture and values as they relate to program implementation and evaluation are respected. By identifying where we have been successful, it is the hope that others can learn and apply similar factors to evaluation planning and execution.
Very much looking forward to the celebration in Chicago!
Vanessa
Vanessa Corlazzoli is a Senior Manager of Design, Monitoring and Evaluation at Search for Common Ground. She manages the Institutional Learning Team, a global technical unit that is responsible for providing monitoring and evaluation support to 34 country programs to enable organizational learning. In her role, she manages four regional DM&E Specialists, as well as special projects that provide M&E technical support to DFID Conflict Advisers and UNICEF’s education and peacebuilding practitioners.
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