Category: Conferences

Impact Evaluation Conference: “Mind the Gap”: From Evidence to Impact

Date: June 15-17 2011
Venue: Cuernavaca, Mexico

Each year billions of dollars are spent on tackling global poverty. Development programs and policies are designed to build sustainable livelihoods and improve lives. But is there real evidence to show which programs work and why? Are government and donor policies based on concrete and credible evidence?

The Mind the Gap conference on impact evaluation will address these questions and offer possible solutions. With a focus on Latin American Countries the conference will take place in Cuernavaca, Mexico, June 15-17, 2011. Co-hosted by The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico (INSP), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the Center for Labor and Social Distributive Studies in coordination with the Impact Evaluation Network and the Poverty and Economic Policy Network (CEDLAS-IEN-PEP).

This conference will provide a platform to share and discuss experiences on how to best achieve evidence-based policy in sectors that are highly relevant for Latin America. To this end, the conference will mainstream a policy-focus into all its activities. The plenary sessions will address the challenges and progress made in building evidence into policy-making processes. The sector-focused sessions will be asked to address the engagement of stakeholders and policy-makers in the various studies presented. The conference will be preceded by a range of pre-conference clinics tailored to the interests and needs of both researchers and program managers.

The conference will accommodate only 400 attendees. The official languages of the Conference are Spanish and English. Simultaneous translation will be provided for all conference sessions.Please register early to secure your attendance. Registration will open March 1st. 2011. Early bird rates will be offered.

Check the conference website often for up to date conference information.  http://www.impactevaluation2011.org/

Bursaries are being made available to developing country participants with a proven interest in impact evaluation.

Bursary applications will open March 1st giving preference to authors of accepted abstracts.

Results, risk assessment and management in development cooperation – Towards a Common Approach

Date: 25 – 26 November 2010
Venue: Nordatlantens Brygge, Strandgade 91, Copenhagen

(From ODI website)

“The conference is organised by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and co-hosted by The Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute and the OECD/DAC International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF).

Development cooperation is political in nature. This is particularly true in high-risk environments, where engagement impacts the behaviours, priorities, influence and power of different groups. High-risk environments could provide tremendous opportunities to deliver positive results, as long as international actors are prepared to take informed political and programmatic risks to facilitate the necessary change. However, current approaches are not always appropriate given the nature of the contexts concerned. There is also a difference between situations of fragility, humanitarian crises, or in other development contexts. Hence, risk analysis needs to take into account the specificities of each situation.

The international community lacks a concerted and agreed upon way to manage and mitigate risks. This conference will take stock on where we are now and what could be the path forward, and come up with a set of practical recommendations.

At the conference, key note speakers representing prominent international actors will discuss how they deal with risk and results management and participants will be provided with an opportunity to discuss lessons learnt from different country contexts in a set of work-shops and, looking ahead, suggest practical recommendations for follow up.

For further information regarding the conference, please click here.

To register please send your contact details to: riskconf@um.dk.  Please indicate which of the three working groups you would like to participate in. Deadline for registration is November 5, 2010.”

Seminar: Complexity-oriented Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PME): from alternative to mainstream?

Date: Wednesday 10 November 2010, 13.30-17.00 pm,
Venue: Theatre Concordia, Hoge Zand 42, The Hague, The Netherlands

The HIVA Research Institute for Work and Society of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, PSO Capacity Building in Developing Countries, the Flemish Office for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance (VVOB), and Vredeseilanden/VECO invite you to a seminar organised within the framework of the Development Policy Review Network (DPRN) to discuss how alternative PME approaches such as Outcome Mapping and Most Significant Change may complement the mainstream Logical Framework approach for complex development programmes. The aim is to come up with recommendations for PME policies, based on lessons learned from practical experience with various PME approaches in complex situations.

The seminar forms the closing part of the DPRN ‘Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in complex social situations’ process, in which the four organisations have worked on various studies about these PME approaches. They analysed the different PME approaches in detail and carried out various case studies of PME approaches which featured as learning histories for various organisations. In addition, the organisers reviewed current PME policy frameworks in Belgium and the Netherlands and organised a public online discussion about the use of Logical Framework versus Outcome Mapping. The insights of these four projects will be shared and discussed at the seminar. For more details see the attached invitation or contact Jan van Ongevalle of HIVA at Jan.VanOngevalle@hiva.kuleuven.be (Jan.VanOngevalle@hiva.kuleuven.be). More information on the process can be found on the website http://pme.global-connections.nl/.

You can register by sending an email to aanmelding@pso.nl (aanmelding@pso.nl) before 1 November, mentioning ‘DPRN seminar 10 November’

Conference: Making the Invisible Visible: An Emerging Community of Practice in Indicators, Sustainability and Values

Date: December 16-18, 2010
Venue: University of Brighton, UK

The University of Brighton will be hosting a groundbreaking, EU funded, international conference on the theme of Making the Invisible Visible: An Emerging Community of Practice in Indicators, Sustainability and Values, bringing together the leading thinkers, practitioners and organizations in these fields.  The conference will also showcase a pioneering €1million EU funded project to trial values-based indicators at the project (see www.wevalue.org), which has demonstrated its value as a tool to measure in a non-reductionist, yet rigorous way, the values dimension of civil society activity, and offers a model of good practice in  civil society-university collaborations.

Among the speakers due to address the conference are global experts in economics, such as Augusto Lopez-Claros (former Chief Economist and Director of the the Global Competitveness Report at the World Economic Forum, and developer of the Humanitarian Response Index); leading environmentalists such as Arthur Dahl (President of the International Environment Forum, former Deputy Assistant Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and former coordinator of the UN System-Wide Earthwatch) and Professor Arjen Wals (UNESCO Chair of Social Learning and Sustainable Development and world expert on environmental education); parliamentarians  such as Professor Bedrich Moldan (Senator in the Parliament of the Czech Republic and a global authority on indicators for sustainable development); civil society organizations as diverse as the International Red Cross, Earth Charter International, the Alliance for Religions and Conservation (ARC, among others; world experts on values in business across the world, such as Richard Barrett (leadership expert mapping values among some 2000 organizations and 3000 leaders in over 40 countries); and many more.

Attendance is free, and there are still possibilities to contribute with a presentation and/or a workshop on the connection between values, sustainability and the challenges of evaluation in your work.

To register at the conference please go to: http://www.brighton.ac.uk/sdecu/research/esdinds/conference/index.html

Conference: Systemic Approaches in Evaluation

Date: January 25th/ 26th 2011
Venue: Eschborn, Germany

Call for Papers & Save the Date

Development programs promote complex reforms and change processes. Today, such processes are characterized more than ever by insecurity and unpredictability, posing a big challenge to the evaluation of development projects. In order to understand which projects work, why and under which conditions, evaluations need to embrace the interaction of various influencing factors and the multi-dimensionality of societal change. However, present evaluation approaches often premise predictability and linearity of event chains. They reflect the natural human need for security but are often not suitable to comprehend complex situations.

In order to fill this gap systemic approaches in evaluation of development programs are increasingly being discussed. A key concept is interdependency instead of linear cause-effect-relations. Systemic evaluations look at interrelations instead of analyzing isolated facts and figures. They focus on the interaction between various stakeholders with different motivations, interests, perceptions, and perspectives.

On January 25th and 26th, the Evaluation Unit of GTZ offers a forum to discuss systemic approaches to evaluation on an international conference with participants from politics, science and practice. On the basis of presentations, discussion rounds and case studies we will tackle, amongst others, the following questions:

·         What characterizes a “systemic evaluation“?
·         What is new about systemic evaluations, what makes them different from other (e.g.  participatory) approaches?
·         For which kind of evaluations are systemic approaches (not) useful?
·         Which concrete methods and tools from systemic consulting can be used?
·         Which quality standards do systemic evaluations have to meet?
·         Which specific methods and tools from systemic consultation practice can be used in systemic evaluation?

We welcome contributions on good practice examples and/or systemic tools for evaluation. Please submit your proposals (1000 words maximum) in English by October 31st to Sabine Dinges (sabine.dinges@gtz.de).

We look forward to receiving your abstracts. Further information on the registration process will soon be provided.

Martina Vahlhaus, Head of Evaluation Unit ,
Michael Gajo ,  Senior Evaluation Officer
gtz German Technical Cooperation
P.O. 5180
65726 Eschborn

Measuring Results for Dutch Development Aid, Approaches and Future Directions

Date: October 4-7, 2010
Venue: Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam,

The International Institute of Social Studies and The Amsterdam Institute for International Development invite applications / submissions for a training and conference event on Measuring Results for Dutch Development Aid, Approaches and Future Directions with financial support from the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department of the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation.

Participation is free of charge, but places are limited.
Deadline for applications: September 10, 2010
Click here to apply

Objectives: Share results from and experiences with impact evaluation in developing countries, and discuss their relevance for Dutch development cooperation.

Target Audiences: Researchers, NGOs, consulting companies and policy makers in the Netherlands conducting or using impact evaluation to study the effectiveness of development assistance.

Confirmed speakers: Dr. Howard White, director of International Initiative for Impact Evaluation(3ie).
Dr. Paul Gertler, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Sulley Gariba, Executive Director, Institute for Policy Alternatives, Ghana.
Prof. Ruerd Ruben, director of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department of the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation (starting Sept 1).

Submit a paper (optional): Contributed papers are sought in the area of (1) completed impact evaluations, (2) reviews of impact evaluations on a particular sector, (3) position papers on approaches to impact evaluations in relation to decision making.

Selection criteria: Quality of submission and/or professional link with result assessment for development assistance and/or participation in the impact evaluation training.

Maximum number of participants: 100

PROGRAM »

UK Evaluation Society 2010 Annual Evaluation Conference

Evaluation in a turbulent world: Challenges, opportunities and innovation in evaluation practice
Date: 22-23 November 2010
Venue: Macdonald Burlington Hotel, Birmingham

Abstracts are now invited for this year’s UKES Annual Evaluation Conference. The on-line submission form is available via the conference website www.profbriefings.co.uk/ukes2010 The closing date for receipt of submissions is 13 August 2010.

With the effects of the financial crisis still being felt, and with a new coalition government in Number 10, many evaluators find themselves operating in a very different policy environment. In particular the rhetoric has changed from tackling the crisis (a central theme of last year’s conference looking at impact) to talk of austerity and cutting back the public sector, a major source of sponsorship for evaluation. While this environment offers tough challenges, it also presents opportunities – in particular in the development and promotion of new evaluation methodologies, relationships and approaches. More than ever there will be a need to assess what is of value, what has quality and in what circumstances evaluation can contribute to informed policy-making and debate. Continue reading “UK Evaluation Society 2010 Annual Evaluation Conference”

The American Evaluation Association annual conference: Evaluation Quality

Date: November 10-13, 2010
Venue: San Antonio, Texas

The American Evaluation Association invites evaluators from around the world to attend its annual conference to be held Wednesday, November 10, through Saturday, November 13, 2010 in San Antonio, Texas. We’ll be convening at the lovely Grand Hyatt San Antonio, right in the heart of the vibrant city and adjacent to the Riverwalk’s nightlife, restaurants, and strolling grounds. Discounted hotel reservations will be available in March.

AEA’s annual meeting is expected to bring together approximately 2500 evaluation practitioners, academics, and students, and represents a unique opportunity to gather with professional colleagues in a collaborative, thought-provoking, and fun atmosphere.

The conference is broken down into 44 Topical Strands that examine the field from the vantage point of a particular methodology, context, or issue of interest to the field as well as the Presidential Strand highlighting this year’s Presidential Theme of Evaluation Quality. Presentations may explore the conference theme or any aspect of the full breadth and depth of evaluation theory and practice.

Proposals are due by midnight in the Eastern time zone, on Friday, March 19, 2010.
For more information: http://www.eval.org/eval2010/10cfp.htm

The Global Evaluation Conclave: Making Evaluation matter

Date: 25-28 October 2010
Venue: The Lalit Hotel , New Delhi, India

“Making Evaluation Matter” is the theme of the conclave. The theme embodies an idea of evaluation that starts with relevance and context, with a strong understanding of who evaluation should serve.

The event will attract global thinkers engaged in cutting edge evaluation research, theorizing, or practice who seek opportunities to push their thinking in new directions and are interested in applying ideas in a South Asian context. It will include leading development theorists, activists and policy makers from South Asia to embed discussions in current development issues and contexts that evaluation must respond to.

The event will be a space to engage with, and test knowledge. The conclave will include around 200 leaders from the global development and evaluation community.

50 + speakers, 24+ hours of knowledge building and networking, 4 power packed days, 1 Great venue, Countless new evaluation opportunities.

Programme schedule | Read workshop description
Click here to download registration form

VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ON METHODOLOGY IN PROGRAMME EVALUATION

7th to 9th April, 2010Date:
Venue: Internet

Overall Conference Theme

International Trends in Programme Evaluation Methodology.

Conference Aims

The School of Human and Community Development at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) aims to bring together contributions from programme evaluation theorists and practitioners working in both developed and developing country contexts.

The virtual conference focuses on the following general areas as relevant to the development of common approaches to programme evaluation internationally:

  • Theory and paradigms of programme evaluation
  • Programme evaluation methodology
  • Teaching, training and instruction in programme evaluation
  • Applications of programme evaluation theory and models, and the practice of programme evaluation.

Ways of Participation

The conference is a virtual conference, hosted on the internet. It focuses on contributions in electronic format of three kinds:
* Papers on programme evaluation theory and/or methodology. These should be written and presented in such a way as to be useful to others on both conceptual and/or methodological levels.
* Workshop materials in the form of PowerPoint presentations supported by written handouts. These should be written and presented in such a way as to be useful to others who teach programme evaluation, for teaching, training and/or instructional purposes.
* Short case studies of completed evaluations. These should be written and presented in such a way as to be useful to others in documenting applications and the practice of programme evaluation, as applied in specific local, national or international contexts.

To participate in the conference, draft contributions and abstracts relative to these three types of contribution need to be uploaded to the conference website between April 7th and 9th, 2010.

Information on deadlines relative to the timing of different stages in the conference upload and reviewing process is provided below. Additional information, instructions for authors and reviewers, and templates, are provided on the conference website at the following address: http://wpeg.wits.ac.za

%d bloggers like this: