gLOCAL Evaluation Week – Local Gatherings of Evaluation Stakeholders Around the Globe by Leo Lemes and Mariana Branco

We’re Leo Lemes, Operations Officer, and Mariana Branco, Evaluation Consultant, both writing from the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group and affiliated with the CLEAR Initiative – Centers for Learning on Evaluation and Results.   We live in a world where global knowledge increasingly shapes local evaluation practices and experiences that, in turn, influence global evaluation thinking. In other words, a world in which evaluation is increasingly “gLOCAL”. To promote inclusive dialogues among key evaluation actors, the CLEAR Initiative, with support from a wide network of local and global partners, is convening a new M&E knowledge sharing initiative called gLOCAL Evaluation Week.  We hope you will participate.

gLocal Evaluation Week Banner
(click for larger image)

The gLOCAL Evaluation Week invites everyone around the world to organize monitoring and evaluation (M&E) events between June 3 and 7, 2019.  gLOCAL Evaluation Week’s participants are welcomed to create events around an M&E topic of their choice. However, the initiative developers suggest four different streams: evaluation practice, themes, results, and capacities.

What is the rational for these streams? Let’s start with the practice of M&E, which is a global and local phenomenon. The M&E practice is subject to pressure towards homogenization and standardization of principles and guidelines, yet it also needs to be localized and continuously adapted to context.

Evaluation themes are becoming more and more complex. Addressing such a level of complexity requires a system’s perspective and a “glocal lens.” For example, fighting climate change and supporting refugees are issues of a global nature, but they demand local action.

Our ability to know and share local evaluation findings on results with wider audiences is critical to promote social change on a larger scale. At the same time, local stakeholders must have access to macro evaluation findings and be able to integrate them when designing and improving interventions.

Finally, evaluation capacities must be locally, nationally, regionally, and globally scaled-up. There is a growing recognition of the importance of building individual and institutional evaluation capacities. Finally, at a systems level, there is still a lack of local and global enabling conditions for increasing evaluation demand.

gLOCAL Evaluation Week will support an exchange of M&E knowledge and experiences as a means to promote evaluation capacity development, support evidence-based decision making, and strengthen development outcomes at local and global levels.

Do you want to be involved?  Please consider:

  • Organizing an M&E knowledge-sharing or networking event between June 3 and 7, 2019. Go to the CLEAR Initiative to submit an event proposal;
  • Promoting gLOCAL Evaluation Week through your networks and channels. More information is available at the CLEAR Initiative; and
  • Encouraging everyone to participate in gLOCAL Evaluation Week events. Go to the CLEAR Initiative to see the 2019 Calendar of Events.

Rad Resources:

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

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