CEval-Evaluation Day: Thinking globally and acting locally for Evaluation Capacity Development

CEval-Evaluation Day starts with the presentation of MABLE, a unique blended-learning Masterprogram on Evaluation managed jointly by Saarland University and the Distaince Learining Institute of Technical University Kaiserslautern. It offers an opportunity to study evaluation at one of the leading places in Germany from everywhere and at reasonable prices. The session is divided in three parts. The first part gives an overview on MABLE, its organization and how one can apply. The second part delivers some impressions from the last f2f-meeting in February 2020, one of two one-week-meetings during the two year study program. The final part introduces e-Learning and its didactical background. It gives an idea of how to work on OLAT e-learning platform and shows some parts of a Video-conference seminar.

The Evaluation GLOBE is a global research project managed and financed by CEval itself. It aims on a global stocktaking of the institutionalization of evaluation on national level. The results will be published in a book series by Palgrave Macmillan, including four volumes on Europe, the Americas, Africa and Australasia. Each Reader will include country chapters written by well-experienced country experts and comparative parts written by the editors. By using a shared analysis scheme, the comparability of each chapter will be guaranteed. The first book on Europe has been published in April 2020 and is now available on the market. For the second volume on the Americas, all draft chapters are available and the editors are just working on the comparison. The third volume on Africa will be prepared this year (e.g. choosing countries, contacting potential authors, appointing them and starting the research process). This session will present an overview on the whole project and its theoretical as well as its methodological framework, share some results on Europe, give an opportunity to chat with the editors and some of the authors, present first results on Latin America and give an outlook on the next steps for the volume on Africa. The purpose of this session is to inform interested evaluators about the project and its results, invite them to join the debates on institutionalization of Evaluation and to offer opportunities for cooperating with us for the volumes on Africa and Australasia. Evaluation is still at an early stage of its global institutionalization and the overaching goal is to share experiences for strengthening the struggle for better evaluation worldwide. The session will be divided in six steps, accompaigned by moderated chats and the opportunity to ask questions to the authors. After a short introduction, explaining the idea, historical background and the scientific purpose of the GLOBE project, the theoretical and methodological framework will be explained in more details. The third part is on the comparative results in Europe, explaining the institutionalization of evaluation in the political systems, the civil society and the system of professions. Some country authors will be asked to meet the session and share their national results in a roundtable talk (due to availability restrictions, maybe this roundtable must be recorded in advance and only a live chat is possible). The fifth part is on Latin America, giving a short insight into first comparative results and the current state of research, followed by a brief overview on the preparance of the African research, including Information on how to join and contribute. At the end of this session, the editors will answer some of the questions personally or in a chat.

Roundtable talk in cooperation with European Evaluation Society TWG 2. Topic: the state of the art and the probable impact of the Corona Crisis on commissioning SDG-evaluations. Invided Speakers are Andrealisa Belzer, Weronika Felics and Benoit Simon. Format (total 60 minutes): 1: 5 min Introduction by Wolfgang 2: 15 min Short introductory statement by each presenter (5 min each if 3 presenters) 3: 20 min discussion of the topic 4: 20 minu answer questions from participants ( added during a chat or during live-session) Descriptopm_ Evaluators may be able to support transformative change to meet public health and economic priorities, by leveraging increased awareness of the links among biospheric, social, and economic SDG outcomes, as well as increased awareness of global interdependence; and a strong climate of public cooperation for mutual protection; The wake of the pandemic could create a change in appetite in the evaluation market from incremental or reform-oriented evaluation projects to evaluative processes that integrate systems thinking, uncertainty, and adaptive management; Covid has amplified awareness of the link between de-colonization and environmental conservation, including food security and prevention of new diseases. There is increasing recognition that Indigenous evaluation and Made in African evaluation is important to self-determination and local wellbeing of local people, advancing national and global commitments such as the UN Decade for People of African Descent and UNDRIP. In addition, respect for multiple ways of knowing, traditional biocentric values are gaining recognition as integral to commitments and SDGs re: biodiversity and climate change. Questions about the possible impact of Covid-19 on SDG Evaluation: 1) Impact on resources for evaluation (financial support for evaluating SDGs): Will there be a cut of evaluation Budgets due to the up-coming economic Crisis? -Weronika to share experiences with a previous crisis in Poland (huge EU funds evaluation market) and refer to global chances for common advocacy by IOCE and Evalpartners in light of such global trends. 2) Impact on policy focus (political support for evaluating SDGs): Will there be a change in policy focus from sustainable development to health issues (particular for strengthening public health in the global south)? Will there be significant changes in sustainable development policy (emphasis on economy instead of environment or social)? - Benoit to add on these questions 3) Regional Differences in Impact Will there be significant differences between Europe and North America? - Andrealisa to add on this

As a scientific research institute, CEval is contributing to many facets of research on evaluation. While the GLOBE-project is more of academic interest, this session will over some insights into research of more practical use. The CEO of CEval-company Dr. Stefan Silvestrini, responsible for conducting a broad variety of different evaluations, is presenting his approach for ex-ante-evaluations and the methods in doing so. The purpose of this approach is its practicability and to explain the necessarity of ex-ante evaluations as a part of Monitoring and Evaluation Systems. After the presentation, Dr. Stefan Silvestrini will be available for a live discussion on this issue.

This session will be held in Spanish and linked to the contributions of three Universities (PUCE, UCR, UdS) to gLOCAL. It focus on the results of a longlasting cooperation and exchange program of the three Universities in Costa Rica, Ecuador and Germany on Evaluation Capacity Development. The partners will inform about their contributions and the results reached during the cooperation. More details will be added until end of April.

Interview with Stefanie Krapp, head of the IPDET program, about the content, the new plans of the 2020 delivery due to the Covid-19 crisis and the ways to join the IPDET events (and community). There will be three parts of IPDET: a hackathon for identifying new issues and developing appropriate issues, a set of online-trainings with famous experts, and a mini-series on specific topics. Stefanie Krapp will explain more details and how to apply.

Evaluation GLOBE: 1) Overview GLOBE-project; 2) Introduction to the Evaluation GLOBE concept; 3) Results from Europe; 4) Some examples for country results in Europe; 5) First Results from the Americas; 6) The Volume on Africa - state of the art (replay of the morning session, targeting on people from Latin America who had not been able to visit the morning session). The live chat will be in Spanish, but no opportunity to discuss directly with authors.

Presentation of MABLE: 1) Overview on CEval-Evaluation day; 2) Welcome Note; 3) Introduction to MABLE; 4) Impressions from f2f-meeting in February; 5) Introduction to Blended Learning; 6) Working on OLAT-Platform; 7) Video-conference Seminar