This EvalForward Talks session will invite participants to share experiences and explore challenges and approaches for measuring and evaluating the results of capacity development interventions. 

In international development, capacity is seen as “the ability of people, organizations and society as a whole to manage their affairs successfully”, and capacity development is at the core of most projects and programmes. While several methods and tools are available to help track, understand and evaluate capacity development interventions, an enabling and trusting environment is particularly important to ensure meaningful feedback.

Cornelia Rietdorf, Senior M&E Officer, will open the meeting by presenting her experience in testing efficiency and sustainability of capacity development activities in the context of an advocacy project in East Africa.

The session took place on Friday, 30 April from 15:00 to 16:15 CET / 13:00 to 14:15 GMT.

"Measure" often seems a first and foremost step to capture change. Biased by the well-known saying “if it cannot be measured it cannot be managed”, donors, project managers and Terms of Reference urge to measure, overlooking the need to understand first, which is at the heart of any evaluation. It is only upon understanding, making links, connecting and looking at the broader context that we can decide if and what it makes sense to measure, or if not to measure at all. This is also an underlying element of evaluating complexities.

In this session, Silva Feretti, free-lance evaluator, shared her experience and examples of why it’s important to “understand first”, what’s the risk of not conducting such assessment, and how she approached this challenge, followed by discussion and inputs by participants. 

The session took place on 26 March 14:00 to 15:15 Rome time / 13:00 to 14:15 GMT. 

AVANTI and EvalForward organized an e-Panel to discuss challenges and explore solutions to data quality production in the agriculture sector in the context of the Covid 19, with:

• Tim Njagi, Research Fellow at the Tegemeo Institute, Kenya;
• Joas Tugizimana, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources of Rwanda;
• Armand Zoa, Head of the Monitoring Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Cameroon.  

This virtual roundtable was organised by the evaluation office of WFP with support of EvalForward in the context of the gLOCAL Evaluation Week. The aim of the roundtable was to examine how to build global bodies of impact evaluation evidence, while still respecting the context-specific understanding of development. 

Facilitator: Jonas Leo Heirman, WFP evaluation officer in charge of WFP’s impact evaluation activities. 

Presentations by: Hanna Paulose, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer (Impact Evaluation) and Kristen McCollum Evaluation Analyst (Impact Evaluation), WFP 

Roundtable discussants: Macartan Humphreys, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Director of the research unit Institutions and Political Inequality, Sven Harten, DEval (German Institute for Development Evaluation), Head of Competence Centre for Evaluation Methodology, Florence Kondylis, Research Manager, DIME, World Bank, Rebecca Holmes, Research Associate, Overseas Development Institute

In the context of the gLOCAL week, the evaluation offices of FAO, IFAD and WFP with the support of EvalForward organized the online learning event: How do innovative evaluations contribute to achieving SDG2?

Drawing from recent and ongoing work from the he Offices of Evaluation of the organizing agencies the event focused on how innovations can provide lessons for progress under SDG2, “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”.

Experts from Benin, Ghana and South Africa discussed on the importance of leadership and results-based management (RBM) in the African agricultural sector. Among factors mentioned that appear to be crucial for building a culture of results-based management are: the importance of leadership at all levels of government, ministerial networks and alliances, and institutional stability. The panel also discussed challenges around capacity building, indicators and technology – and the work being done to overcome them.

Panelists: 

• Angela Dannson, Director, Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Department, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana
• Elias A.K. Segla, Evaluation specialist, Presidency, Republic of Benin, Bureau of Public Policy evaluation and Government Action Analysis
• Ian Goldman, Advisor on Evaluation and Evidence Systems, CLEAR Anglophone Africa and Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town. 

Ce webinaire, organisé par EvalForward et par le réseau du CAD sur l’évaluation du développement EvalNet, présente les critères d’évaluation du Comité d’aide au développement (CAD) de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE). 

Ces critères ont récemment fait l’objet d’un processus de révision: le référence révisé, les nouvelles definitions, la portée des changements et des examples tirés des evaluations de projets et de programmes en agriculture font l'objet des presentations du webinaire. 

• Rélatrice: Megan G. Kennedy-Chouane, Secrétaire générale du réseau EvalNet, OCDE
• Facilitatrice: Rachel Sauvinet Bedouin, Fonctionnaire principale chargée de l'évaluation, FAO

This webinar presented the revised OECD DAC Criteria to interested members of the EvalForward Community of Practice with examples on their contextualization in the agriculture / food security sector.

• Presenter: Megan Kennedy-Chouane, Secretariat, EvalNet OECD
• Moderator: Rachel Sauvinet Bedouin, Senior evaluation Officer, FAO 

This webinar presented the experience of different UN agencies and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) in using synthesis and meta-analysis in evaluation, and was organized in the context of the Interest Group on methodologies of the UNEG (United Nations Evaluation Group) and as a follow up to the online discussion hosted on the EvalForward Community of Practice.