GEI Hosts Webinar on Why We Need More Feminist Evaluations

The Global Evaluation Initiative hosted a webinar on Evaluation and Gender Equality: Why we need more feminist evaluations. The webinar recording is now available.
news
28 March 2024

Evaluators have a critical role to play in advancing gender equality and social justice. How can they capitalize on their work to help break down the barriers to equality?

On March 27, the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI) held a webinar on the critical role of evaluation in promoting equal rights and opportunities for all individuals, regardless of gender. More than 500 people attended the webinar, which GEI hosted in partnership with Global Affairs Canada, the United Nations Population Fund, United Nations Women, and the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for South Asia (CLEAR-SA), a GEI implementing partner.

The webinar entitled “Evaluation and Gender Equality: Why we need more feminist evaluations” brought together panelists from different regions to share experiences and perspectives on how evaluation can contribute to greater gender equality and social justice. They examined the need for applying more feminist approaches to address the complex and multidimensional nature of inequality.

Silvia Grandi presented key opportunities and challenges in using feminist evaluations, based on the experience of Global Affairs Canada’s Evaluation Division. She explained why feminist approaches are necessary to make evaluation a driver of change. 

Karen Cadondon delivered a presentation on why using feminist evaluation is essential to achieving the United Nations Population Fund’s mission of not leaving anyone behind on the road to progress. She demonstrated how the organization puts feminist principles into real evaluative practice. 

Florencia Tateossian talked about how UN Women and its partners design and implement tools to better understand how gender perspectives are integrated into national evaluation systems and capacities in Latin America and the Caribbean. She outlined several pathways towards greater progress in gender-responsive evaluation. 

Sohini Mookherjee provided a view of what gender-transformative evaluation looks like at the local level, drawing from the work of the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for South Asia. She emphasized the importance of providing training, technical support, and advisory services to further promote gender-transformative evaluation. 

The panelists provided a list of resources on how to apply more gender-responsive approaches to evaluation practice. The resources are available on GEI’s knowledge management platform, Better Evaluation.

Speakers

  • Silvia Grandi - Deputy Director of the Evaluation Division at Global Affairs Canada (GAC)
  • Karen Cadondon – Evaluation Specialist at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Independent Evaluation Office
  • Florencia Tateossian – Evaluation Specialist at the Independent Evaluation Service of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (UN Women)
  • Sohini Mookherjee - Lead at the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for South Asia (CLEAR-SA)

Moderator

  • Claudia Olavarria - Evaluation Consultant for the Feminist Innovations in Monitoring and Evaluation (FIME)

Host

  • Dugan Fraser - Program Manager of the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI)