The international Partnership Initiative to promote Evaluation

Capacity Development

An international collaborative initiative with 34 key partners and others still joining

Purpose of the EvalPartners Initiative

To promote collaboration among evaluation organizations (VOPEs) to strengthen Evaluation Capacity Development … including addressing

the evaluation environment, i.e. policies, systems, demand for and use of evaluations.

What’s a VOPE?

Voluntary Organization for Professional Evaluation

I.e. formal associations or societies; informal networks / communities of practice … open to a wide variety of members … at national, regional

or international levels

Mapping the status of VOPEs around the world

1981 Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) Societe canadienne d'evaluation (SCE)

1986 – American Evaluation Association (AEA)merger of Evaluation Research Society (1979) and Evaluation Network (1982)

1987 – Australasian Evaluation Society (AES)

1992 – UK Evaluation Society (UKES)

1994 – European Evaluation Society (EES)

1999 – African Evaluation Association (AfrEA)

2000 – International Program Evaluation Network (IPEN)

See existing interactive world map and database of global VOPEs at

www.IOCE.net

Mapping the status of VOPEs

That amazing growth of the evaluation profession is more succinctly summarized in the

following bar graph …

1981 1983 1986 1987 1988 1992 1994 1995 1996 1997 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Cumulative number of VOPEs in existence, by year (only including those reporting year of formation)

Mapping the status of VOPEs

EvalPartners VOPE survey by the numbersCountries in which we have some VOPE

contact information: 119

Number of national VOPEs identified: 150Number of national VOPEs verified

(survey responses and/or websites): 102

Countries with one or more verified VOPEs 91

Regional and international VOPEs: 23

Total Verified VOPEs : 125

Note: these numbers constantly change as new information is received. These are the numbers as of June 4, 2013.

Current membership numbers reported (including overlaps)(multiple memberships)

AEA (USA) 7,800

BMEN (Brazil) 4,100

ReLAC (Latin America & Caribbean) 3,847

CES (Canada) 2,016

AES (Australasia) 1,034

DeGEval (Germany & Austria) 722All others reporting 17,001

Total aggregate reported membership numbers:

36,520

How formally organized are these VOPEs?

Types of organization (global data)

Informal networks 36%

Charter & bylaws adopted 12%

(but not officially recognized by govt.)Legally recognized by government

53%

(presumably charter & bylaws included)

EvalPartners Initiatives

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Program

Multiple mutually beneficial partnerships being formed!

Thanks to generous financial support by the Finish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other donors, EvalPartners has offered grants of up to $5,000 for P2P projects.

In February a Call for Proposals was sent to all the contact persons we have for the 102 Verified VOPEs on the IOCE database, plus many others on listservs such as IOCE-EvaLeaders, IOCE-Network, XCEval, AfrEA and IDEAS, the UNICEF network, etc.

25 P2P proposals have been approved, involving 31 national

VOPEs plus 6 regional VOPE networks

Two of those granted P2P partnerships involve CES:1. A partnership with the Brazil M&E Network (BMEN) to

help BMEN evolve from an informal network to a more formally organized association or society.

2. A partnership with the Thailand Evaluation Network (TEN) to help it respond to its government’s request that a Certification of Professional Evaluators Program be established.

Here’s what some of these partnerships look like geo-graphically

All the P2P proposals and peer reviews are available for viewing

(and learning from) at http://ioce-p2p.wikispaces.com/

VOPE Institutional Capacity Toolkit

Responding to an expressed need by many evaluation networks,

associations and societies

Thus one of the 5 taskforces that was established is one that focuses on responding to that need.

During the International Forum on Civil Society’s Evaluation Capacities in Chiang Mai, Thailand (December 2012), one of the needs frequently expressed by representatives of the many VOPEs there was the request for help in strengthening their institutional capacities.

After reviewing the applications received, the Toolkit Taskforce decided to ask Susan Kistler (former Executive Director of AEA)

to serve as consultant to develop this toolkit for international VOPEs.

Enabling Environment Advocacy Toolkit

To help VOPEs play roles in helping governments develop stronger

evaluation policies and systems, to demand utilize evaluations.

How VOPEs are addressing “the evaluation environment” in their countries

An important component of the EvalPartners mapping survey was to find out what VOPEs are doing to promote ECD in general, and governmental policies and the “demand side” for evaluation in particular. The Enabling Environment Taskforce is committed to helping them be even more effective in such efforts.

Innovations ChallengeIdentify innovative ideas to strengthening the demand for and use of evaluation to inform

policy making, including in the context and spirit of EvalYear, the International Year of Evaluation

EvalPartners Innovation Challenge

• Identify innovative ideas to strengthening the demand and use of evaluation to inform policy making, including in the context and spirit of EvalYear.

• Ideas submitted by VOPEs can be at international, national or sub-national level.

• Three winners will be awarded $15,000 each to implement the idea

Knowledge Management

• Get the right information to the right people at the right time; • Enhance the organization, integration, sharing, dissemination,

use and reuse of knowledge; • Connect people with relevant information, knowledge

and expertise.

Contribute to the documentation of good practices

EvalPartners Timeline

March 2012: EvalPartners Launch + mapping of VOPEs

December 2012: International Forum on Civil Society Evaluation Capacity Building Strategies

July 2012: Launch of e-Learning Programme on Development Evaluation: 12.000 registered participants from 175 countries

January 2013: Advocacy strategy for enabling environment for Evaluation

February - April 2013: Published two books

March 2013:P2P launched

2015 – The International Year of Evaluation

Declaring 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation

(EvalYear)

Evidence for the world we wantUsing evaluation to improve people’s lives through better policy making

a Global Initiative of Coordinated Local Action

• 2015 will be designated as the International Year of Evaluation (EvalYear) in order to advocate and promote demand for and use of evaluation in evidence-based policy making at international, regional, national and local levels

• EvalYear will position evaluation in the policy arena, by raising awareness of the importance of embedding monitoring and evaluation systems in the development and implementation of the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals, and all other critical local contextualized goals, at the international and national levels

• EvalYear is about taking mutual responsibility for policies and social action through greater understanding, transparency, and constructive dialogue

Let’s go back to that earlier slide of the 34 key partners that have joined EvalPartners

What do they (and other institutions) have to gain by

becoming a part of this Movement?Many donors (bilaterals, multilaterals, INGOs, etc.) have

their own programs to strengthen evaluation capacities. Many of them now recognize the value of

collaborating with others – to promote synergies.Might your own institution also benefit by being a

part of (or at least learn from) this global movement?

How can you get involved?

CES is very much a part of IOCE and EvalPartners.But we invite creative ideas from you (participants in this session) as to how CES can be most helpful and

effective, and how you as individual members can get engaged in this exciting global collaborative initiative!