Rewiring Evaluation: Approaches at the intersection of data science and evaluation
NA-Online
About the Event
Join us for a lively session on approaches at the intersection of data science and evaluation!
These sessions will feature a combination of evaluators and data science users and practitioners to explore lessons, opportunities and challenges in rewiring evaluation. The sessions will draw on the new Rockefeller Foundation report, Measuring Results and Impact in the Age of Big Data: the Nexus of Evaluation, Analytics, and Digital Technology, and other lessons from both international development experiences and the ongoing COVID-19 situation.
Watch Live: https://ieg.worldbank.org/event/datascience-and-evaluation
These sessions will feature a combination of evaluators and data science users and practitioners to explore lessons, opportunities and challenges in rewiring evaluation. The sessions will draw on the new Rockefeller Foundation report, Measuring Results and Impact in the Age of Big Data: the Nexus of Evaluation, Analytics, and Digital Technology, and other lessons from both international development experiences and the ongoing COVID-19 situation.
Watch Live: https://ieg.worldbank.org/event/datascience-and-evaluation
Sessions
Panel Discussion
June 3, 2020
09:00 AM - 10:15 AM
The presentation will begin by reviewing some of the major challenges facing current evaluation approaches. These include the limited capacity of most evaluation methods: collect the amount and variety of data required to evaluate large and complex programs operating a rapidly changing world; to evaluate complex programs; and to rapidly analyze vast quantities of diverse data. It will then discuss the ability of big data to address these kinds of problems, and will review some of the kinds of big data that can address these challenges, including: geospatial analysis, social media, phone call data records, mobile phones, electronic financial transaction records (ATM etc), the Internet of Things and the huge volumes of underutilized administrative data. Case studies will illustrate some real-world applications of these techniques.
Speakers
| Name | Title | Biography |
|---|---|---|
| Michael Bamberger | Independent Evaluator and Author | Michael Bamberger has been involved in development evaluation for over 40 years. Publications include "Integrating big data into the monitoring and evaluation of development programs", "Dealing with complexity in development evaluation", and "RealWorld Evaluation". |
| Pete York | Principal and Chief Data Scientist | Pete York has over 20 years experience as an evaluation consultant and researcher. For the past eight years, he has built predictive, prescriptive, and causal evaluation models using large administrative datasets and machine-learning algorithms across many fields |
| Veronica Olazabal | Senior Advisor and Director, Measurement, Evaluation and Organizational Performance | Veronica Olazabal, Senior Adviser & Director at The Rockefeller Foundation, is an award-winning evaluator with a global portfolio ranging +15 years. She serves on various funding and advisory boards and has published on this topic in the Evaluation. Under her management, The Rockefeller Foundation recently published Measuring Results and Impact in the Age of Big Data: the Nexus of Evaluation, Analytics, and Digital Technology. |
Panel Discussion
June 3, 2020
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
The first part of this session will explore how the Indian context presents unique challenges and solutions to the adoption of data science for evaluation studies in the development sector. Taking into account data collection ethics that the post-COVID-19 era will necessitate, it will further emphasize how innovation and technology can pave the way for greater use of data science for evaluations in India. In the second part, we will explore the availability of new types of data and new techniques for analyzing existing and new data which are generating novel opportunities in the field of evaluation, specifically asking how this trend is influencing the practice of independent evaluation in multilateral (development banks, United Nations) and bilateral agencies in the field of international development.
Speakers
| Name | Title | Biography |
|---|---|---|
| Jos Vaessen | Methods Adviser, Independent Evaluation Group | Jos is Methods Advisor at the World Bank. Publications include: "Impact evaluations and development – NONIE guidance on impact evaluation", "Mind the gap: perspectives on policy evaluation and the social sciences", "Dealing with complexity in development evaluation: a practical approach". |
| Swapnil Shekhar | Co-founder and COO | Swapnil Shekhar is a co-founder and COO at Sambodhi, South Asia’s leading impact evaluation and research organization in the development and public sector. Swapnil has 20+ years of experience driving large-scale MLE projects across Asia and Africa, being an active contributor to the global south development narrative and field. |