Multiple Voices, Multiple Perspectives from the Region: Building a Road Map for Change

1. Multiple Voices, Multiple Perspectives from the Region: Building a Road Map for Change Chelladurai Solomon, India Sonal Zaveri, India Bhabatosh Nath, Bangladesh Ramesh Tuladhar, Nepal

2. Multiple Regional Voices: Preamble Leading into the Evaluation Conclave, the Community of Evaluators organized regional meetings in Kathmandu, Mumbai, Chennai, & Dhaka. Brought together about 200 evaluators, funders, policy makers, and development implementers. Together, we explored challenges, gaps, and opportunities in making evaluation matter in dev. Used these events to reach out to, & connect evaluators, evaluation commissioners, and evaluants at the national, state and grassroots level. Some of the key insights & debates voiced are presented here Chelladurai Solomon, Sonal Zaveri, Ramesh Tuladhar & Bhabatosh Nath lead the presentations 

3. Multiple Regional Voices: Key Evaluation Gaps Whose evaluation and who evaluates whom? How inclusive is it? How is it conducted? Who uses the evaluation findings?

4. Whose evaluation and who evaluates whom? Dhaka, Bangladesh Largely the funders initiate evaluation to check the efficiency, effectiveness & lessons learnt Need to drive for collective ownership over the evaluation

5. Whose evaluation and who evaluates whom? Chennai, India The evaluants are brought in subsequently to the decision of the funders Expect the evaluants to learn from the evaluation process. Crucial to collectively set the objectives, scope, methodology, tone & when?

6. Whose evaluation and who evaluates whom? Kathmandu, Nepal There is multiple evaluation perceptions No evaluation policies and standards Build bridges; need coordination among the major stakeholders

7. Whose evaluation and who evaluates whom? Mumbai, India Can the gap between “the sponsor/funder” and “the doer” ever be bridged? Implementers are accountable to funders, & to people they work with. Can we make evaluation be a two way process?

8. Posers for CoE & Seeking Partnership Whose evaluation and who evaluates whom? Regional Voices Be instrumental in nurturing ‘collective ownership over the evaluation’ by the major stakeholders (beneficiaries, govt, implementer, funder, evaluator)

9. How inclusive is it? Dhaka, Bangladesh Not all the major stakeholders (beneficiaries, implementers, donors & evaluators), are included in selecting evaluators. Set a procedure where the major stakeholders involve equally in the selection

10. How inclusive is it? Chennai, India Evaluation scope & its implementation hardly checks on the root causes, grassroots complexities & the problem relevance Build road map for bottom-up approach: relevance, knowledge, methods, perceiving achievements or gaps, use

11. How inclusive is it? Kathmandu, Nepal Insufficient attention to the barriers (traditional divisions, gender) and opportunities (community participation, village structures) Be sensitive to grassroots group compositions and their involvement

12. How inclusive is it? Mumbai, India Major stakeholders (community/groups/ intermediaries) are hardly involved in planning & finalization of evaluation Kept evaluation and evaluators separated from the programs Integrate programs & evaluation measures from the program planning; inbuilt eval system & evaluator

13. Posers for CoE & Seeking Partnership How inclusive is it? Regional Voices Derive & disseminate measures for bottom-up approach where the major stakeholders are on board.

14. How is it conducted? Dhaka, Bangladesh The methodology as well, is decided by funders themselves along with evaluation managers / evaluators. There is compromise on the rigor of the methodology & data collection. Gender is mainly limited to number (desegregation only). Enhance the participation of the beneficiaries & go beyond numbers (gender & beneficiaries).

15. How is it conducted Chennai, India Professional exercise, the history is ignored; business-like, often the human became a number. Evaluation tools hardly open up the minds of the beneficiaries & intermediaries for learning Validity question in the sources of data; social evidence based cases or sec data from govt sources Have structured set of impact indicators, generated by the program & beneficiaries

16. How is it conducted? Kathmandu, Nepal Capacity building on Evaluation is not a priority area of govt & funders Securing financial resources for evaluation is problem Do capacity enhancement of evaluators & building evaluation organizations

17. How is it conducted? Mumbai, India Evaluators have inadequate knowledge of the people & organization to be evaluated Take into account the value & social system of grant makers, evaluants & people Have clear ToR that spell out the purpose, methods, dissemination & use

18. Posers for CoE & Seeking Partnership How is it conducted? Regional Voices Enhance capacity in evaluation; understanding, skill, methods &networking Include all the major stakeholders in the CB interventions.

19. Who uses the evaluation findings? Dhaka, Bangladesh Findings have limited dissemination. Agencies are unwilling to share evaluation report. Evaluation results be shared with the major stakeholders & be followed up for use with sensitivity

20. Who uses the evaluation findings? Chennai, India Evaluations are used / misused selectively for correction & continuity Set system to check the use of the evaluation findings appropriately

21. Who uses the evaluation findings? Kathmandu, Nepal Lack of evaluation use for learning and policy making Affirm benefits of evaluation use for transparency, accountability, better development results & good governance

22. Who uses the evaluation findings? Mumbai, India How are funders accountable both to the organization & people? Assess possibilities of wider dissemination / larger replicability

23. Posers for CoE & Seeking Partnership Who uses the evaluation findings? Regional Voices Inculcate culture for citizen’s voice in dev programs (govt and others) & evaluation use

24. Thank you Multiple Voices, Multiple Perspectives from the Region: Building a Road Map for Change Seeking Partnership and solidarity CoE Members