RE: What can evaluations do in terms of capacity development? | Eval Forward

Dear Luisa and Lavinia,

Thank you for your email which made me smile broadly. A recently published a UN Women guide, which I co-authored, Inclusive Systemic Evaluation for Gender equality, Environments and Marginalized voices (ISE4GEMs) holds capacity development of evaluands, beneficiaries, stakeholders at the heart of its methodology (see link to guide below). I also have included a link to a publication from Danny Burns, a colleague in the UK that is doing this exact work with very marginalized groups.

We used this approach in Guatemala with six communities of indigenous artisans, local partners, and the sponsoring NGO with great success. All participants seemed to better understand, describe and clarify the intended and unintended impact of the program in which they had participated. They were also able to identify non-human marginalized voices (e.g. their culture, climate change) which contributed to positive and negative outcomes of their involvement with the NGO program.

I will be adapting and using ISE4GEMs in two upcoming development evaluation projects in Cambodia, Vanuatu, Kenya and Colombia and will be able to share more about how the capacity development bolstered (or not) the evaluation after July 2019.

ISE4GEMs: http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2018/9/ise4gems-a-new-approach-for-the-sdg-era#view

Danny Burns: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0377221717310366

I would welcome scheduling a call with you to talk about your experiences and learn more about your work. I am based in California, USA.

Ellen D. Lewis

Ethos of Engagement, USA