RE: Are you considering social and environmental criteria in your evaluations? | Eval Forward

Isha, you mention that "We, as evaluators, are obliged to execute the TORs duly"

My take is that, as evaluators, we should also question the TORs and negotiate them!

One of the main contribution we can offer is to propose alternatives ways to look at change, beyond the "cut and paste" TORs that are offered to us.

Some organizations and evaluation managers are actually quite open to this.

Others are not.... and, if it is the case, well... their problem.

I certainly would not want to work on an evaluation that I feel is missing the point from the start. :-)

 

See, as cyclo-activists say about car drivers... "you are not IN traffic, you ARE traffic".

As consultants, we do have a duty to resist TORs which we know are constraining learning and quality of work.

 

Another point... I was surprised by how the question was presented to us.

The question says "Major agencies and the UN in particular are considering how to integrate environmental and social impacts in their evaluations"

"Are considering"? Now... environmental concerns are (unfortunately) relatively new... but social ones, are they really?

We had all sort of cross cutting themes for ages (gender, disability and the like...).

I am really scared by how the "triple nexus" (a glorified take of the relief / development continuum - discussed for the past 2 decades) and "social impacts" are presented as if they were a new thing, requiring starting with a blank slate.

It would be healthier to highlight that these concerns are not at all new, otherwise we just risk going around in circles.

Best to all

Silva