After Beijing, What’s Next?

Claudia Olavarría is a communications and feminist evaluation consultant at GEI. She is also the global coordinator of gLOCAL Evaluation Week, GEI's annual knowledge-sharing event.

In October 2024, I attended the National Evaluation Capacities Conference (NEC) in Beijing. I was one of more than 500 delegates from all over the world to discuss this year’s theme, "Responsive Evaluation for Governments, for Inclusion, and for the Future". 

During the 48-hour journey from my hometown in the Andes to China, I had time to build up my expectations in anticipation of the interesting debates awaiting us at the foot of the Great Wall. The conference theme invited us to reflect on the institutional and individual capacities and enabling conditions for adaptive, inclusive, and future-oriented evaluation practices and use at the national level. 

The perspectives and insights shared by governments and organizations working to strengthen national monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacities at the NEC Conference underscored the importance of inclusion. Not just inclusion for the sake of it, but the meaningful inclusion of diverse voices—women, youth, indigenous people, local and rural communities, among others—in evaluation processes. Among the valuable sharing of experiences and lessons learned at NEC, many discussions explored approaches and tools needed to design, implement, and use responsive evaluations. 

These conversations reminded me of debates during gLOCAL Evaluation Week, held in June 2024, which focused on evaluation as a catalyst for transformational change. Both gLOCAL and NEC featured keynote speeches, panels, and workshops highlighting how evaluation and evidence can drive transformational change that addresses the world’s most pressing development challenges sustainably. 

Voices from different sectors and parts of the world are calling for evaluations that can help foster transformational change in areas like environmental sustainability, gender equality, and social justice. As a result of years of debate, we have reached a degree of consensus on the conceptual and methodological paths forward. Although 2024 has marked a pivotal moment in the conversation around "evaluation for transformation," this is not new. Year after year, our community aspires to make these ambitions a reality. But it feels like something is still missing. If there is growing agreement on how evaluation should be implemented and used to influence transformation, why are we not helping transformational change occur, or occur more quickly? 

Returning home from NEC, I reflected on the enduring challenges of inequality and exclusion and steps forward. What more will it take to address these issues with better evidence, leading to better policies and, ultimately, better lives? 

As we anticipate future gatherings of the global evaluation community at conferences next year, I dream of expanding our debates and deepening inclusion in our field. Who else should we invite to the table? How can we help empower those willing to champion transformational change, where better evidence truly informs better policies in a timely manner to make better lives for all, while safeguarding our ecosystems?  

Many of the inspirational conversations, and the valuable country experiences shared in Beijing hinted at answers.  We must deepen our efforts to include those most affected by crises, civil society and grassroots organizations and human rights, feminist and environmental activists, peace advocates, and their representatives. We can start with parliamentarians but also include thought and action leaders.  At the GEI, we are opening spaces for meaningful conversations among organizations and experts, and future collaborations for action towards more inclusive and transformational evaluation—through our Feminist Innovation in Monitoring and Evaluation (FIME) project with Global Affairs Canada.

Let’s push the door wide open and invite everyone ready to join and help drive the transformative change our world so urgently needs.