Jindra [user:field_middlename] Cekan

Jindra Cekan

Founder
Valuing Voices at Cekan Consulting LLC
Czechia

My contributions

  • Evaluability Assessments: An invitation to reflect and discuss

    Discussion

    • Jindra Cekan

      Founder Valuing Voices at Cekan Consulting LLC
      Czechia

      Amy and all-
      So I think we need to differentiate between what is evaluable in terms of the aims of the evaluation (timeframe for exposed typically excludes some projects because we have found that we really need to look 3 to 5 years after closure and if it has been more than seven years, then it’s hard to evaluate, and we’ve also found that project that we implemented longest had a greater likelihood of sustainability of results and emerging impacts), plus we need to look at the quality of evaluative data, (for instance, not just trainings given, but what were participants trained in? Was there any knowledge change or behavior change as a result at the final evaluation so we could evaluate changes to it expost). 
      So an evaluability assessment depends on the aim of that evaluation which is different from how we evaluate. With ex-post evaluations, we want to make sure that partners and participants are still around to be asked (I did one 15 years later post closure in Uganda and the professors training teachers at the pedagogical University were there, but all the ministry staff had changed, and local teachers and students had long moved on).

      Yes, I too mandate in our evaluations that we must have boots on the ground to evaluate with local stakeholders, partners at national and regional levels, with the villagers, with the local leaders, and all of that is participatory. Yes, we use focus group interviews, key informant interviews transect walks, lots of participatory tools as outlined in this toolkit we worked on (just out, please comment: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gyfu_K_3 🌟 Share your comments and suggestions via af-terg-sec@adaptation-fund.org).

      To the question of stakeholders creating the evaluation with us: we have asked local people if they would like us to evaluate their project to give them answers they’d want to learn… but repeatedly we have gotten no answers. They look at us rather confused because, I think, they’re just living their lives and they see the project as an input into their lives, one of many, whereas when we try to isolate the project and its results in itself is very strange to folks ;).


      Hope this help!

      Jindra Čekan/ová PhD
      Www.ValuingVoices.com and Jindracekan.com

    • Jindra Cekan

      Founder Valuing Voices at Cekan Consulting LLC
      Czechia

      Everyone, yes, as Gaia said: "EAs specifically assess whether a project is ready to be evaluated. This includes reviewing the clarity and measurability of objectives, the robustness of data collection plans, the availability of baseline data, etc." It astonishes me how many projects across the development spectrum are unevaluable (thanks to EAs which show us this) which is an avoidable data debacle. For instance, in 2022 we shared our ex-post evaluation process and 4 case studies at the Adaptation Fund. On slide 8, we note that only 20% of the projects were evaluable based on the criteria we set which included being closed at least 3 years but not more than 7, that there was good data to evaluate (methodological feasibility), and that it provided opportunities for learning across sectors/ geographies etc.

      Warmly, Jindra

    • Jindra Cekan

      Founder Valuing Voices at Cekan Consulting LLC
      Czechia

      Everyone, glad to see this is being discussed. In 2017 we got a grant from Michael Scriven's Faster Forward Fund to look at 8 ex-post studies. Here is the blog about our report, linked: https://www.betterevaluation.org/tools-resources/building-evidence-base-for-post-project-evaluation-case-study-review-evaluability-checklists

      As part of that work, we created Evaluability Checklists which we've adapted and used the last 7 years in many ex-posts we've done including these for the Adaptation Fund https://www.adaptation-fund.org/about/evaluation/publications/evaluations-and-studies/ex-post-evaluations/. 
       
      Warmly, Jindra


       

      Jindra čekan/ová, PhD
       

      Valuing Voices: Sustainable Solutions for Excellent Impacts
      and Development Finance + Development Aid for Sustained Impacts
      CEKAN CONSULTING LLC
      President/ Catalyst
       

      “By the power of your inner peace, you become the force that changes everything.”

      ― Thích Nhất Hạnh 
       

      "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that it is worth doing, no matter how it turns out." - Vaclav Havel