Anna Downie (a.downie@ids.ac.uk) Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator

1. Valuing evaluation beyond programme boundaries: Communicating evaluations to enhance development effectiveness globally Anna Downie (a.downie@ids.ac.uk) Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator Strategic Learning Initiative Institute of Development Studies, UK

2. Evaluation as a public good • Communicating evaluations for accountability and communicating to share learning • Access to lessons learnt for practitioners and policy makers • Benchmarking and learning between organisations

3. Evaluations, context and the politics of knowledge • Evaluations are politically sensitive • Results are context specific and often complex • Especially from participatory monitoring and evaluation processes • Lessons learnt either to general or too specific to be useful • Thematic/sector/country wide evaluations try to make lessons learnt more relevant • Need to find ways to communicate different types of evaluation, at different stages during the process

4. Challenges • Few incentives to communicate beyond the programme • Experience of the IDS Knowledge Services: • Large and bulky reports, hard to summarise • Written for a specific audience (often the donor) • Rigour and quality often unclear • Often reports are hidden away in remote places on the web (if they make it onto the internet) • Need to learn from pilots in rapidly changing areas such as climate change- but rarely shared

5. Examples of good practice • DAC Evaluation Resource Centre • World Bank Evaluation Department • Danida • ALNAP • 3ie • IFAD • But… • Focused on large scale impact evaluations • How much do smaller evaluations, or those using different methodologies, get shared? • How do policy-makers or practitioners access the information? • How much synthesis is being done and is that shared beyond organisational boundaries?

6. Understanding how evaluation influences • Can learn from research influence and uptake • What works (experiences from IDS): • ‘Sticky messages’ / Rallying ideas • ‘Knit working’- building coalitions of connectors and champions • Strategic opportunism – identifying windows of opportunity for impact/influence • Challenge of evaluating the influence of evaluations on policy and practice

7. Increasing the use of evaluations in policy and practice • Availability on websites important, but doesn’t necessarily mean it will be used • Understand how target groups search for, access and use information • Information literacy • Incentives to look for and use evaluations; incentives for organisational learning • Need multiple communication strategies

8. What can we learn from research communications? • Timeliness and relevance • Editing, summarising • Brevity and clear messages • Credibility and quality • Synthesis important • Marketing • Networking and multi-way communication • Being systematic and opportunistic • Requires variety of different skills

9. Target groups • Identify different target groups and tailor communication strategies • Involve networks and communities of practice throughout the evaluation process

10. Multiple communication approaches • Different tools • Print • Seminars • Toolkits • Email updates • Online discussions • Visual • Blogs • Pod casts • CD Roms/USB sticks • Policy briefings • Different channels • Traditional academic: e.g. journals, conferences, research networks • Direct stakeholder involvement • Practitioner and advocacy networks • Information and Knowledge intermediaries

11. Conclusions • Building in incentives to communicate evaluations • Learn from experience of research communications • Tailored approaches for different audiences • Build communications in from the start • Role of information and knowledge intermediaries • Horizontal learning and accountability: • Involving and sharing learning with wider range of stakeholders, including networks and communities of practice, throughout the evaluation process

12. Questions for the future • How can context specific and potentially sensitive evaluations be shared, adapted and applied beyond the programme context? • How do we assess the influence of evaluations on policy/practice? • How can ‘decision-makers’ be encouraged and supported to use evaluations from other contexts/programmes for evaluation informed decision-making? • What strategies/channels/methods are effective in communicating evaluations beyond the specific programme context? • What kinds of networks and communities could both benefit from, and add insight to, the final conclusions of an evaluation itself? • Share your views: www.alineplanning.org