Impact Evaluation of Population, Health and Nutrition Programs

Date: October 5 – 16, 2009
Venue:  Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi, India

USAID’s MEASURE Evaluation Project is pleased to announce the regional workshop on “Impact Evaluation of Population, Health and Nutrition Programs,” for English speaking professionals. The workshop is sponsored by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), New Delhi, India in collaboration with MEASURE Evaluation. The two-week course will be held October 5 – 16, 2009 in New Delhi, India.
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A Regional Workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation of HIV/AIDS Programs

Date: August 3-14, 2009
Venue: Pretoria, South Africa

USAID’s MEASURE Evaluation Project is pleased to announce a training opportunity for the Anglophone Africa region. The School of Health Systems and Public Health at University of Pretoria in Pretoria, South Africa is offering a regional workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation of HIV/AIDS Programs. This two-week course will take place August 3 – 14, 2009, and will be taught in English.
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IFAD “Evaluation Manual: Methodology and Processes.

produced by the Office of Evaluation, April 2009

“The evaluation methodology in use at the IFAD Office of Evaluation is captured in the new OE Evaluation manual, which is based on the principles set out in IFAD’s evaluation policy, approved by IFAD’s Executive Board in April 2003.

The main purpose of the manual is to ensure consistency, rigour and transparency across independent evaluations, and enhance OE’s effectiveness and quality of work.
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Quantification of qualitative data in the water sector: The challenges

by Christine Sijbesma and Leonie Postma

Published in Water International, Volume 33, Issue 2, June 2008 pp. 150-161 (Full text >here<)

Abstract

Participatory methods are increasingly used in water-related development and management. Most information gathered with such methods is qualitative. The general view is that such information cannot be aggregated and is therefore less interesting for managers. This paper shows that the opposite can be the case. It describes a participatory methodology that quantifies qualitative information for management at all levels. The methodology was developed to assess the sustainability of community-managed improved water supplies, sanitation and hygiene. It allows correlation of outcomes to processes of participation and gender and social equity and so assess where changes are needed. The paper also describes how elements of positivistic research such as sampling were included. Application in over 15 countries taught that such quantified qualitative methods are an important supplement to or an alternative for social surveys. While the new approach makes statistical analysis possible, it also increases the risk that participatory methods are used extractively when the demand for data on outcomes dominates over quality of process. As a result the collection of qualitative information and the use of the data for community action and adaptive management gets lost. However, when properly applied, quantification offers interesting new opportunities. It makes participatory methods more attractive to large programmes and gives practitioners and donors a new chance to adopt standards of rigor and ethics and so combine quantification with quality protection and developmental use.

a one day event designed to explore impact assessment …

Date: Thursday 2nd July 2009
Venue: London

EGO – Empowering Grassroots Organisations would like to invite you to…a one day event designed to explore impact assessment with leading speakers from the Third Sector

On Thursday 2nd July 2009 in London, empACT will take on three key areas; we will:

· explore the outcomes of impact assessment through sector wide funding and grassroots perspectives

· explore methods of assessment

· host workshops around proven methods and tools.

empACT will bring together speakers with wide-ranging expertise in the field to interrogate the real advantages and disadvantages of some of the methods explored.

Confirmed speakers include…

Sarah Alderson, Head of Projects – TimeBank

Isabel Ros Lopez, Inclusion Manager – United Response

Tanya Murphy, Independent Evaluation Practitioner

Samantha Beinhacker, Producer and Developer – Germination

For tickets: www.amiando.com/empACTconference or for further information please email maor@egonetwork.org.uk

Claremont Graduate University’s Evaluation Workshops Go On-Line

Date: August 21-2, 2009
Venue: Claremont Graduate University, Southern California

Professional Development Workshop Series

Claremont Graduate University is proud to offer our annual line-up of acclaimed workshops for professionals, academics, and students who seek to hone their research and evaluation skills.  Presenters from across North America will gather in beautiful Claremont, California, to teach participants from academia, research institutes and think tanks, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, and the public sector.  As always, this year’s series offers several new workshops as well as long-standing favorites.

Each workshop lasts one full day.  Workshops in this series have consistently sold out in previous years, so save your seat in the workshops of your choice by registering online today.

Registration: On-Site Workshops

Registration: Online Workshops

The Claremont Evaluation Debates

Full List of Workshops

Undergraduate Fellowship Program

 About the Online Offerings

Daily Schedule

Location, Directions, and Lodging

Workshops Photo Album
For the First Time, Summer 2009

We will be offering one workshop each day via live webcast in a state-of-the-art virtual classroom environment. The virtual classroom offerings will include interaction with the live presenter and participants. Anyone with a high-speed internet connection, computer speakers and a microphone is able to participate. Use of a webcam is encouraged for maximum interaction.

Follow this link to register for the online versions of our workshops!

The live webcast offerings will include:

Social Network Analysis And the Evaluation of Leadership Networks

Bruce Hoppe, Ph.D. Connective Associates LLC
bruce@connectiveassociates.com
Claire Reinelt, Ph.D. Leadership Learning Community
claire@leadershiplearning.org
January 19, 2009

Abstract
Leadership development practitioners have become increasingly interested in networks as a way to strengthen relationships among leaders in fields, communities, and organizations. This paper offers a framework for conceptualizing different types of leadership networks and uses case examples to identify outcomes typically associated with each type of network. One challenge for the field of leadership development has been how to evaluate leadership networks. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a promising evaluation approach that uses mathematics and visualization to represent the structure of relationships between people, organizations, goals, interests, and other entities within a larger system. Core social network concepts are introduced and explained to illuminate the value of SNA as an evaluation and capacity-building tool.

Full text here

Vancouver Outcome Mapping Training Workshop – September 21-24

Date: September 21-24
Venue: Vancouver

Outcome Mapping is a practical, flexible and participatory approach to planning, monitoring and evaluation. First introduced by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in 2000, Outcome Mapping (OM) has been used in projects, programs and organizations around the world. A growing body of donor agencies, NGOs and monitoring and evaluation professionals are adopting OM because it helps them address complexity issues that other, more traditional methods do not consider.
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Stakeholder analysis and social network analysis in natural resource management

Christina Prell, Klaus Hubacekb, Mark Reed, Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield and  Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, 2009

Full text here

Introduction

Many conservation initiatives fail because they pay inadequate attention to the interests and characteristics of stakeholders. (Grimble and Wellard, 1997). As a consequence, stakeholder analysis has gained increasing attention and is now integral to many participatory natural resource management initiatives (Mushove and Vogel, 2005). However, there are a number of important limitations to current methods for stakeholder analysis. For example, stakeholders are usually identified and categorized through a subjective assessment of their relative power, influence and legitimacy (Mitchell et al., 1997; Frooman, 1999). Although a wide variety of categorization schemes have emerged from the literature (such as primary and secondary (Clarkson, 1995), actors and those acted upon (Mitchell et al., 1997); strategic and moral (Goodpaster, 1991); and generic and specific (Carroll, 1989) methods have often overlooked the role communication networks can play in categorizing and understanding stakeholder relationships. Social network analysis (SNA) offers one solution to these limitations.

Environmental applications of SNA are just beginning to emerge, and so far have focused on understanding characteristics of social networks that increase the likelihood of collective action and successful natural resource management (Schneider et al., 2003; Tomkins and Adger, 2004; Newman and Dale, 2004; Bodin et al., 2006; Crona and Bodin, 2006). In this paper, we harness and expand upon this knowledge to inform stakeholder analysis for participatory natural resource management. By participatory natural resource management we mean a process that engages stakeholders on multiple levels of decision making and facilitates the formation and strengthening of relationships among stakeholders for mutual learning (Grimble and Wellard, 1997; Dougill et al., 2006; Stringer et al., 2006). To enhance stakeholder analysis, we use SNA to identify the role and influence of different stakeholders and categories of stakeholder according to their positions within the network. We do this using case study material from the Peak District National Park, UK.

Survey of Donor Approaches to Governance Assessment

Published by the  Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC),
Size: 34 pages (358 KB)
Full Text here

Executive Summary

Bilateral and multilateral development agencies have engaged intensively in assessing governance over the last decade. To explore opportunities for increased harmonization and alignment in this area, members of the OECD DAC’s GOVNET have commissioned a survey of donor approaches to governance assessments. The survey reported here focuses on general and thematic governance assessment approaches actually used by agencies.

The survey identified 11 agencies having 17 general assessment tools in use and 3 under development, while 6 agencies which presently have no own tools are developing these. 9 agencies reported having 13 thematic tools in use, 4 of these and 3 other agencies are developing new tools. The thematic tools category includes assessment tools related to conflict, human rights, corruption, and sector assessments, as well as tools which focus on particular themes (e.g. financial governance aspects).

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