In this final edition of the EvalCrisis podcast series by the EC’s Evaluation Support Service, we take stock of what we learned, together with Director for Sustainable Development Policy and Coordination Félix Fernández-Shaw of the EC Directorate for International Partnerships. The COVID-19 crisis has had major implications for our evaluation practice. What are key lessons and what do we take with us into the future? One thing is clear: we cannot stop evaluation now, just because it is difficult.

Félix Fernández-Shaw has been the Director for Sustainable Development Policy and Coordination at the European Commission (DG INTPA, previous DEVCO) since April 2018. He has been working on Sustainable Development policy and the external actions budget of the EU since 2009, as Expert in the Cabinet of Federica Mogherini (where he was also responsible for the relations between the EU and Africa), since November 2014, as Head of the Development Cooperation Coordination Division in the European External Action Service and prior to that as a Spanish diplomat in the Spanish Permanent Representation to the EU including chairing CODEV WG in the Council. Additionally, Félix Fernández-Shaw worked on Justice and Home Affairs matters for both the EU and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Felix Fernandez - We cannot stop evaluation now

Coming from a professional angle of education Abeer Hakouz in this podcast puts the focus on learning: fully recognising the challenges of the pandemic, she sees it as a learning opportunity as well, and holds a passionate plea for a culture of sharing, in which evaluators can all learn from each other.

Abeer Hakouz is the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at Queen Rania Teacher Academy (QRTA) in Jordan. She has 16 years’ experience in the area of Monitoring and Evaluation, research, strategic planning, performance management, microfinance, and professional development for educators, among others.  Her experience includes the public sector, NGOSs, and local and international organizations. Additionally, Abeer Halouz is co-founder and current President of the Jordan Development Evaluation Association (EvalJordan), and the MENA region representative in EvalGender+.

In the podcast you will hear Abeer Hakouz in conversation with Marco Lorenzoni, Saskia Brand and Hur Hassnain from the European Commission DG DEVCO/ESS. The technical support is provided by Michael Potar and Saskia Brand and the introduction is read by Sarah Davies.

Abeer Hakouz - Learning by doing

A field perspective

In this edition, we give the floor to Maeve De France and Edmond Wach from the French NGO CartONG. CartONG is an NGO specialized in Information Management whose mission is to put data at the service of humanitarian, development and social action projects. In particular, they aim to tackle the technical, strategic and ethical challenges of digital technologies in support of the humanitarian and development community. Being deeply involved in data collection, Maeve and Edmond share their experiences in adapting to the global crisis and present us with a captivating view from the field.

MAEVE DE FRANCE is the Mobile Data Collection & Information Management Project Manager at CartONG. She deployed to more than 15 countries to support the implementation of, and supervise, a wide range of programmatic data collection and analysis tools. Before joining CartONG, she worked for many years in the private sector as Water and Sanitation Geographical Information Systems specialist.

EDMOND WACH has over 10 years of experience in operational NGOs at both field and HQ levels, working on Information Management and Monitoring & Evaluation strategies, capacity building and technical support. Prior to CartONG, he worked with NGOs, such as Terre des Hommes and Solidarités international, with deployments in more than 20 countries.

Cart ONG - A field perspective

ADA OCAMPO, Senior Evaluation Specialist with UNICEF, is a firm believer in the power of networks. While effortlessly guiding us through the web of national, regional and global networks, she argues that for evaluators to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, evaluation messages need to be shaped in a language that is understood by decision-makers and shared at the right places. It is critical, therefore, that we participate in platforms at various levels, to help prioritise and shape actions.

Ada Ocampo is a sociologist and a renowned evaluator. She has worked in the UN system since 1990 with UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA and IFAD in North and Latin America, Africa and Asia. Currently based in New York, where she holds the position of Senior Evaluation Specialist with UNICEF, she is the co-chair of EVAL-SDGs, and President-elect of IDEAS.

In the podcast we’ll hear Ada Ocampo in conversation with Marco Lorenzoni, Hur Hassnain and Saskia Brand from the European Commission DEVCO/ESS. The technical support is provided by Michael Potar and Saskia Brand and the introduction is read by Sarah Davies.

Ada Ocampo - Believing in the power of networks

It is about time that youth are considered relevant stakeholders in every stage of the evaluation process. This means implying them in meaningful ways in data collection and analysis, both as agents of development and as evaluators. It also means giving them a seat at the table when national policies are discussed. But, as EvalYouth leaders ALENA LAPPO and ANA ERIKA LAREZA passionately declare: those seats not yet being provided is no reason to sit around and wait. Young and Emerging Evaluators are invited to take initiatives and the current pandemic offers unexpected opportunities to do so.

ALENA LAPPO is an independent evaluation consultant with seven years of analysis and research experience in the public and private sectors. Currently working with the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group, previous experiences include work with the Independent Office of Evaluation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Alena Lappo is the leader of the European Emerging Evaluators (yEES!) network and member of the EvalYouth Task Force II – Mentoring.

ANA ERIKA LAREZA is a researcher, environmentalist and a YEE from the Philippines, with 4 years of experience in M&E Consultancy. She is the YEE focal person for Philippine Evaluators for Development (PHILDEV) and the Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Evaluation Association (APEA). Additionally, she is responsible for the Secretariat of the EvalYouth Global Network's E-Learning Task Force and a co-founder and co-leader of EvalYouth Asia.

Evalyouth - Normalising youth involvement

He is not the only one saying it: in this podcast, Asela Kalugampitiya (University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka) argues that evaluators need to make their findings and recommendations digestible and actionable, so that policymakers can carry them forward into laws and policies. He has more than earned his right to speak though, by tirelessly working to bridge the gap between evaluation and policy for the past ten years. He speaks of how networks were built across the globe and how parliamentarians increasingly take an interest in evaluation. And they should: if we want to achieve the SDGs, we need to know what we’re doing, and to know what we’re doing we need to measure.

ASELA KALUGAMPITIYA is a lawyer, currently the President of both Sri Lanka Evaluation Association and the Asia Pacific Evaluation Association. Asela has been working in the Monitoring and & Evaluation field over two decades including for international organizations such as International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE), International Development Law Organization (IDLO), UN Women, UNICEF, UNFPA, ILO and CARE International as Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist. Asela is the Secretariat for the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation. Asela was instrumental in launching International Year of Evaluation 2015 globally and organizing Global Evaluation Forum held at the parliament of Nepal and parliament of Kyrgyz Republic. He is the (honorary) Director- Center for Evaluation, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and a member of the teaching faculty of the Post Graduate Diploma in Monitoring and Evaluation course run by the same university.

Asela Kalugampitiya - Connecting to the policy level

Megan Kennedy-Chouane, from the beating heart of evaluation, the OECD-DAC, shares her concern for the health of evaluators in these trying times and makes an appeal to “leave no evaluator behind”, but also to make sure that evaluations matter more. This involves better listening, better use of existing information (recycle- reuse-reduce), and better uptake by policymakers. Now’s the time!

MEGAN KENNEDY-CHOUANE heads the Evaluation Unit in the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, managing the DAC Network on Development Evaluation. She currently leads work on evaluating blended finance, and the COVID-19 Global Evaluation Coalition. 

Previously, she worked at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation in London, managing a $13 million portfolio of evidence, measurement and evaluation work on climate change mitigation in Latin America, Europe and China. Prior to this, Megan Kennedy-Chouane led the Bright Beginnings Early Childhood Development Initiative, a cross-sector collaboration to improve the lives of young children and their families in Monterey County, California.  

She holds a post-graduate diploma in Children, Youth and Development from the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague, and a Master's in Public Administration from the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

In the podcast we’ll hear Megan Kennedy-Chouane in conversation with Marco Lorenzoni and Hur Hassnain from the European Commission DEVCO/ESS. The technical support is provided by Michael Potar and Saskia Brand and the introduction is read by Sarah Davies.

Megan Kennedy-Chouane - Recycle-reuse-reduce

In spite of a general commitment by policymakers to make evidence-based policy decisions, and in spite of the fact that this is now more important than ever, we are faced with a wide gap between policy and M&E. What’s needed is better partnerships leading towards more local-led evaluations, better data analytics, and more agile learning systems, so that evaluation can feed policy real-time.

ALISON EVANS is the Director-General of Evaluation at the World Bank Group, where she leads the work of the Independent Evaluation Group. She counts more than 25 years of international development experience, spanning policy, research and evaluation across diverse geopolitical and multicultural environments. 

Previous roles include Chief Commissioner of the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact, where she helped transform the organization’s scrutiny mandate; Executive Director of the Overseas Development Institute, where she helped steer the UK’s leading international development think tank in new strategic directions and to a stronger result focus; and a previous stint at the World Bank, as a Senior Economist, where she was part of the team that produced the 1997 World Development Report.

In the podcast we’ll hear Alison Evans in conversation with Marco Lorenzoni, Saskia Brand and Hur Hassnain from the European Commission DEVCO/ESS. The technical support is provided by Michael Potar and Saskia Brand and the introduction is read by Sarah Davies.

Alison Evans - Closing the M&E gap

Welcome to the #EvalCrisis podcast series! Through this series, we aim to learn from evaluators and evaluation commissioners around the world how the global health crisis has impacted the practice of evaluation and how we can keep on evaluating, even under the present difficult circumstances.

This is part of Evaluation in Crisis, an initiative by EC, DG DEVCO / Evaluation Support Service (ESS), to share lessons on the adaptation of the evaluation profession, methods and tools to face global crises such as the COVId-19 pandemic. Follow us online and subscribe to our Newsletter!

By EC DEVCO / Evaluation Support Service (ESS)

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