EvalPartners - Presentation at CES Toronto 2013 Evaluation Conference

1. The international Partnership
Initiative to promote Evaluation
Capacity Development

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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. Mapping the status of VOPEs
around the world

6. 1981 Canadian Evaluation Society (CES)
Societe canadienne d'evaluation (SCE)

7. 1986 – American Evaluation Association (AEA)
merger of Evaluation Research Society (1979) and Evaluation Network (1982)

8. 1987 – Australasian Evaluation Society (AES)

9. 1992 – UK Evaluation Society (UKES)

10. 1994 – European Evaluation Society (EES)

11. 1999 – African Evaluation Association (AfrEA)

12. 2000 – International Program Evaluation Network (IPEN)

14. See existing interactive world map and
database of global VOPEs at
www.IOCE.net
Mapping the status of VOPEs

15. That amazing growth of the
evaluation profession is more
succinctly summarized in the
following bar graph …

16. 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
1981 1983 1986 1987 1988 1992 1994 1995 1996 1997 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Cumulative number of VOPEs in existence, by year (only
including those reporting year of formation)

17. Mapping the status of VOPEs
EvalPartners VOPE survey by the numbers
Countries in which we have some VOPE
contact information: 119
Number of national VOPEs identified: 150
Number 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.

18. 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) 722
All others reporting 17,001
Total aggregate reported
membership numbers:
36,520

19. 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)

20. EvalPartners
Initiatives

22. Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
Program
Multiple mutually beneficial
partnerships being formed!

23. 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.

24. 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.

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

26. All the P2P proposals and peer
reviews are available for viewing
(and learning from) at http://ioce-
p2p.wikispaces.com/

27. VOPE Institutional
Capacity Toolkit
Responding to an expressed need
by many evaluation networks,
associations and societies

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. Enabling Environment
Advocacy Toolkit
To help VOPEs play roles in helping
governments develop stronger
evaluation policies and systems, to
demand utilize evaluations.

31. 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.

32. Innovations Challenge
Identify 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

33. 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

34. 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.

35. Contribute to the documentation of
good practices

36. 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
Internation
al Year of
Evaluation

37. Declaring 2015 as the
International Year of Evaluation
(EvalYear)
Evidence for the world we want
Using evaluation to improve people’s lives through better policy making

38. 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

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

40. 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?

41. 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!