Federica [user:field_middlename] Bottamedi

Federica Bottamedi

Evaluation Outreach Specialist
CGIAR
Italy

Federica Bottamedi is an independent evaluator, communication strategy consultant, and facilitator. She currently supports the evaluation function of the CGIAR Independent Advisory and Evaluation Service (IAES). Prior to joining IAES, she had been working on improving evaluation use and uptake as a Communications and Outreach Specialist and was directly involved in the management and conduct of evaluations at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Office of Evaluation. Since 2013, while at FAO she was an active member of the UN Evaluation Group (UNEG); and an active member of the Evalforward Community of Practice. Ms Bottamedi received the recognition of the best FAO employees in 2019. She obtained several certificates of specialization in Evaluation from EvalPartners. Previously, she served at the Office of the President and the Vice-President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and at the European Commission Directorate General for Trade, in Brussels. She holds an MSc in European International Relations and Diplomacy from the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium), an MSc and a BSc in International Relations and Diplomacy from the University of Trieste (Italy). Her mother tongue is Italian, and she is proficient in English, French, German, and Spanish, with basic knowledge of Russian.​

My contributions

  • Measuring without understanding “puts the cart before the horse”. If we measure something that is unclear or based on wrong assumptions, we are likely to end up with irrelevant data and or misleading conclusions. It is crucial, therefore, that we understand before we decide what to measure or, indeed, whether to measure at all. This was the main message by Silva Ferretti, the freelance evaluation consultant who opened the third EvalForward Talks, who astutely pointed out that this was not always the case and should be common practice in evaluation.

    The EvalForward Talks session underscored the need to reaffirm understanding

  • In the first of a new series of knowledge-sharing sessions open to members of the Community, participants shared how they have adapted their evaluation practice to cope with restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

    The extensive and rapid spread of Covid-19 has shifted much evaluation work to remote modalities and raised new challenges and uncertainties for both managers and evaluation teams [1].

    Renate Roels, Evaluation Manager at FAO, opened the discussion by talking about sharing the unexpected issues she faced and how she addressed them, including managing teams and expectations remotely, as well as building trust.

    Below are the key

  • Why use facilitation in evaluation?

    Blog

    This is the case of facilitation skills. A recent training held at the FAO Office of Evaluation in Rome by
    Milton Kamewendo, a professional (and excellent!) facilitator, shed light to the many cases and situations where facilitation techniques can help advance the evaluation activities, collect new evidence, overcome barriers and create a collaborative environment.

    Facilitation literally means, “Helping people to talk”.

    People lie at the heart of evaluation, beyond tools, methods and approaches: their disclosure of information and data, their feedback and how they engage with the evaluation as a whole. People provide the wisdom; we need