Category: Types of Events

Annual Praxis Commune on Participatory Development

Date: 19th – 28th August, 2008
Venue: KILA Campus, Thrissur (Kerala), India

This residential workshop acts as a forum for participants from across the world to come together for reflection and learning. It provides both, a theoretical understanding of participatory approaches/tools as well as the opportunity to apply them in the field. The ten days include general and specific module based theory, three days in various rural, peri-urban and urban field settings, as appropriate to the module content and finally a sharing, reflection and feedback session. Continue reading “Annual Praxis Commune on Participatory Development”

Training on Evaluation of Sustainability, by EASY-ECO Saarland

Date: 20th to 24th October, 2008
Venue: Saarbrücken, Germany

The next training opportunity within the EASY-ECO series of conferences and training courses will be held from 20th to 24th October, 2008 in Saarbrücken, Germany. The training will focus on the areas of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of regional development programmes and evaluation of climate protection initiatives, water management programmes and environmental education. This is the first training with a new structure: an e-learning phase lasting 3-4 months, followed by a 5-day on-site case training (for details, see http://www.sustainability.eu/easy/?k=training&s=germanycourse). Continue reading “Training on Evaluation of Sustainability, by EASY-ECO Saarland”

Event: Navigating Complexity – An innovation dialogue

Date: May 26-27, 2008
Venue: Wageningen International, Netherlands.

[Ten presentations given at this event are now available online]

What does complexity thinking mean for development interventions? This innovation dialogue offers a unique opportunity for exploring how emerging insights from the complexity sciences and systems thinking, combined with field practice, could reshape assumptions about the design, monitoring and evaluation of development work. What does it mean to shift from compliance with external standards to investing in capacities for navigating complexity? Continue reading “Event: Navigating Complexity – An innovation dialogue”

Two MSC workshops: for first time and experienced users

Date: 24-28 November 2008
Venue: New Delhi – India

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We would like to inform you of the following forthcoming, PRAXIS-promoted training workshops:

  • Innovations in the use of the “Most Significant Change” (MSC) Technique. REVIEW WORKSHOP: For Experienced Users. 24-25 November 2008, New Delhi – India. More info
  • The “Most Significant Change” (MSC) Technique. TRAINING WORKSHOP: For first time users 27-28 November 2008, New Delhi – India. More info

Rick Davies – the developer of this Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation technique – and Veronica Magar – Director of REACH – will facilitate.

If you are interested and want to pre-book your place, please, send an email to raffaellac@praxisindia.org (specifying which of the two workshops you’d like to attend)

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Raffaella Catani
PRAXIS, Institute for Participatory Practices
C-75 South Extension, Part II
New Delhi 110049
Ph. (+91) 011- 41642348/51

Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness

Date: 2-4 September 2008
Venue: Accra, Ghana,

In September 2008, ministers from over 100 countries, heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, donor organizations, and civil society organizations from around the world will gather in Accra for the Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (2-4 September). Their common objective is to help developing countries and marginalized people in their fight against poverty by making aid more transparent, accountable and results-oriented. The Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (Third HLF) will:

  • review progress in improving aid effectiveness
  • broaden the dialogue to newer actors
  • chart a course for continuing international action on aid effectiveness

ODI Seminar: Exploring the Science of Complexity in Aid Policy and Practice

Date: July 9th 2008
Venue: ODI, London

Dear All,

I am very pleased to be able to share with you all the agenda for the forthcoming Seminar at ODI on “Exploring the Science of Complexity in Aid Policy and Practice” (see below). [July 9th, ODI, London] The aim of this first Seminar is to bring together practitioners and researchers to discuss the key ideas of complexity thinking, and the relevance they have for those working in the international aid sector, and to identify some concrete and practical ways to take this area of work forward, both collectively and within our individual organisations.
Continue reading “ODI Seminar: Exploring the Science of Complexity in Aid Policy and Practice”

Event: Does UK development aid work?

Date: 17 July 2008
Venue: Wellcome Trust, London

ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE THE EVALUATION OF BRITISH AID – BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK…

3.30pm to 6.00pm (Registration from 3.00 pm) Book now – places limited!

Does British aid to poor countries work? Is the Department for International Development accountable for results? Is it a learning organization? These evaluation issues will be explored during a special event of the UKES London Network to be held on 17 July 2008.

Given tight budgetary constraints and the rapid expansion of United Kingdom funding for global poverty reduction, aid effectiveness has become an issue of salient political importance. The Independent Advisory Committee for Development Impact (IADCI) was established in November 2007 by the Secretary of State for International Development.
Continue reading “Event: Does UK development aid work?”

Conference: What Works in Development? Thinking Big and Thinking Small

Date: Thursday, May 29, 2008 to Friday, May 30, 2008
Venue: The Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC

Event Summary: Bill Easterly and Jessica Cohen of Brookings recently convened a conference with leading development experts to explore one of the most vexing issues of global development: what do we really know about what works and what doesn’t when fighting global poverty? The conference focused on the ongoing debate over which paths to development really maximize results: a big-picture approach focusing on the role of institutions, macroeconomic policies, growth strategies and other country-level factors; or a more grassroots approach focusing on particular microeconomic interventions such as conditional cash transfers, bed nets, teaching materials and other micro-level improvements in service delivery on the ground. The conference objective was to shed light on both schools of thought, with the goal of achieving a consensus on how to best leverage limited resources and time in the race to lift the lives of the world’s poorest.

Evaluation related papers, amongst others:

The New Development Economics: We Shall Experiment, But How Shall We Learn?
Author: Dani Rodrik (Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government)
Discussants: Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard University) & Martin Ravallion (World Bank)

Pricing and Access: Lessons from Randomized Evaluations in Education and Health
Author: Michael Kremer (Harvard University and the Brookings Institution)
Discussants: David Weil (Brown University) & Paul Romer (Stanford University)

Conference: EVALUATING THE COMPLEX

Date: 29 – 30 May 2008
Venue: Oslo, Norway

Norad’s Evaluation Department and Oslo University College is planning to hold a two-days conference entitled Evaluating the Complex. The purpose of this conference is to promote interest in and discussions about the role of evaluations in Norway. The main target group is people working professionally with evaluation on different levels; as evaluators, researchers, administrators and users. The conference will take place in Oslo, 29-30 May 2008 at Oslo University College in Pilestredet 35.

CONCEPT PAPER
Conference presentations here

Workshop: Standards & Practices in Evaluating Development

Date: August 3-8, 2008
Venue: University of Bamako, Mali

Organizer: Association pour la Promotion de l’Evaluation au Mali (APEM) – Bamako – Mali

Mamadou Keita – President (mkeita@delta- c.org)

Workshop Coordinator: Ahmed Ag Aboubacrine, DME Coordinator, CARE International in Sierra Leone,

ahmed1996@yahoo. fr

This event is part of the 5th Mali Symposium on Applied Sciences, to be held at the University of Bamako from August 3-8, 2008.

Abstract

Monitoring and evaluation of development intervention and policies’ implementation has become an absolute necessity after the setting of international norms of evaluation practices by donors as well as private sector, governments and local constituencies.

Evaluation has not become only a cross-cutting academic area (studied and subject of scientific researches) but also a basic requirement in almost all sectors: health, education, finance, infrastructure, social, agriculture, livestock, water and sanitation, urban planning, habitat, HIV/AIDS, transport, gender, corruption, governance.

Besides the standards set by independent organizations such as African Evaluation Association (www.afrea.org) and also IDEAS (http://www. ideas-int. org/ ); there are other specific evaluation mechanisms:

* African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)

* Governance Index of Mo Ibrahim foundation

* Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) National Evaluation Mechanisms supported by World Bank, African Development Bank, UNDP and other UN agencies.

Each of the above mentioned organizations has its norms and standards in monitoring and evaluation which are most of them very similar.

This mini-symposium objective is to promote monitoring and evaluation practices in Mali in order to ensure the effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of development interventions undertaken by the state, local constituencies, donors, NGOs and private sector.

The specific objectives are three:

* Sharing of existing evaluation standards (state-of-art)

* Exchanging on current practices of evaluation in Mali

* Finding out the strategies for generalization / institutionalization of evaluation practice by state actors

Submission of papers

Papers should be submitted in an A4 format and should not exceed four pages. All papers related to the standards and practices of evaluation in any area could be accepted.

For more details, visit our website:

http://www.msas. maliwatch. org/msas2008/ msas2008_ 018.html

%d bloggers like this: