My name is Florence Etta (she/her), currently a Principal Consultant, researcher, monitoring and evaluation expert focusing on gender equality, equity and human rights with GRAIDE International Consultants Limited, Nigeria http://graideinternational.org/. I serve as Associate Editor of the African Evaluation Journal (aejonline.org). Late last year I was interviewed by the Melissa Pomeroy and Rogerio Silva of the Brazilian Evaluation Association for their journal https://www.rbaval.org.br/current. More information about me and some ideas on my take on evaluation can be found in that interview.
My experience living, working or studying in four African countries and two non-African countries has given me a respect for and appreciation of the true value of international and cross-cultural experiencing. Moving from Nigeria to Senegal awakened me to unforced, genuine and popular pan Africanism – while living in Eastern Africa gave me valuable cross-cultural education.
But my international and cross-cultural moment was a brief yet unforgettable evaluation of a program in Minwaashin Lodge | Ottawa as a participant in an evaluation training over a decade ago offered by Mosaic.Net International Services –http://www.mosaic-net-intl.ca/services. This experience made me see differently, like never before, helping me thereafter to always try to immerse myself as an evaluator, as much as humanly possible, into the different cultural realities of the programs being assessed. In addition to leading me to seek and get the International and Cross-Cultural Evaluation TIG travel award in 2012, in 2015 I joined EvalIndigenous – the global indigenous network for evaluation.
More than ever before the world is getting to be one large work and play space for those who dare. As you will see from John Njovu’s contribution, one of the resources listed below, many evaluations are being undertaken by international consultants, consortia and or research organisations. It is in the interest of the AEA to both encourage and prepare members to dare! The world needs better cross-cultural understandings.
Rad Resources:
- https://evalpartners.org/sites/default/files/10Qs4evaluatorsUSletter.pdf Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association (ANZEA) journal online commentary by John Njovu on Covid-19 and Indigenous evaluation in Zambia
- Paper by Fiona Cram of Maori work during the Covid-19 lockdown in K?tuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online.
- Rabbit Proof Fence
Hot Tip:
International and Cross-cultural evaluation has a lesson we could all use – context is critical!
The American Evaluation Association is celebrating International and Cross-Cultural (ICCE) TIG Week with our colleagues in the International and Cross-Cultural Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our ICCE TIG members. 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. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.