Good morning! I’m Sheila B Robinson, aea365’s Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor. I love to share evaluation news and, ever the teacher, I look for opportunities to educate aea365 readers. Today’s lesson is about EvalYear, the International Year of Evaluation. If you haven’t yet heard about this, it’s time to get reading!
In October 2013 in São Paulo, Brazil at the Third International Conference on National Evaluation Capacities it was announced that 2015 would be the International Year of Evaluation (EvalYear). EvalPartners, the global movement to strengthen national evaluation capacities, is behind the effort, and it’s a big effort! Two leading partners and 47 core partners (of which AEA is one) along with 1580 evaluators/activists have joined or expressed interest in the declaration of EvalYear.
“The aim of designating 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation is to advocate and promote evaluation and evidence-based policy making at international, regional, national and local levels.”
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Image credit: Hans Watson via Flickr
Lesson Learned: When you visit the EvalYear website and start reading, you will come across no fewer than 15 acronyms! Most are written out, but not all are (or are not written out on every page), so to prepare, have a little taste of alphabet soup!
- IOCE – International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation
- IEG – Independent Evaluation Group
- OECD/DAC – Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development / Development Assistance Committee
- VOPE – Voluntary Organization of Professional Evaluators
- MDGs – Millennium Development Goals
- SDGs – Sustainable Development Goals
- UNEG – United Nations Evaluation Group
- ECG – Evaluation Cooperation Group
- ALNAP – Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- TF – Task Force
- NECD – National Evaluation Capacity Development
- QCPR – Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review
- CSO – Civil Society Organization
- ECD – Evaluation Capacity Development
- EFGR – Equity Focused and Gender Responsive
“EvalYear will position evaluation in the policy arena, by raising awareness of the importance of embedding monitoring and evaluation systems in the development and implementation of the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals, and all other critical local contextualized goals, at the international and national levels. EvalYear is about taking mutual responsibility for policies and social action through greater understanding, transparency, and constructive dialogue.”
Hot Tip: Visit EvalYear to learn more and consider how you will get involved!
Rad Resources: Check out the resource center for presentations and updates. The EvalYear logo and brochure is currently available in 18 languages and it is being translated in to many more languages.
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.