Montreal, 7 December 2023 – “Evaluators no longer have exclusivity on performance appraisal. There are new actors that have moved quietly into the space, and have done so quite successfully. Against this backdrop, evaluators need to ask themselves if they can they answer the big and urgent questions of our times, or if have they been overtaken by reality in terms of their own relevance. Being fit-for-purpose requires rethinking approaches and crafts”, affirmed Dr Indran A. Naidoo, Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), during the webinar titled ‘What did we learn? Policy evaluation in the era of COVID-19’, on 6 December 2023.

Hosted by the Max Bell School of Public Policy, at McGill University, the virtual event brought together international experts, practitioners and established academic thinkers in the field of policy evaluation, and drew on insights from Australia, Canada, the UK and the United Nations. The webinar marked Routledge’s open-access release of the book ‘Evaluation in the Era of COVID-19’. Event speakers featured the co-editors of the volume, namely Dr Naidoo; Prof Pearl Eliadis, Associate Professor at McGill University; and Dr Ray C. Rist, former President of the International Program for Development Evaluation. Several chapter authors also intervened, including Mariel Aramburu, Partnerships Officer at the UN World Food Program; Steve Montague, Partner at Performance Management Network Inc.; Robert E. Lahey, President of REL Solutions Inc.; Dorothy Lucks, Executive Director of Sustainable Development Facilitation Global, Australia; and Jeremy Lonsdale, former Director, of the UK National Audit Office.

In a frank take on the shortcomings of evaluation during the pandemic, contributors shared notable stories of learning, innovation and successes, using institutional, national and disciplinary perspectives. Discussants touched upon a number of questions, such as whether evaluation met the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, if evaluators were caught flat footed by the restrictions and challenges of the pandemic, and how evaluation practices, architectures and values were affected.

Traditionally, evaluators have worked in predictable environments, often in silos, with long time horizons available to generate results and findings. The COVID-19 pandemic called for a change of pace, and of approach. Unfortunately, though, evaluation outfits were largely unable to respond by working in a holistic manner and at speed, especially in the UN. As a result, Dr Naidoo explained that during the crisis the input of evaluators was limited. Instead, the critical monitoring data generated and used for recovery came from non-traditional actors and sectors, such as academia and research outfits. This was a missed opportunity.

Dr Naidoo further highlighted that, today, the demand from governments is for action-oriented solutions, which often cannot be delivered through traditional evaluation models. Moreover, traditional evaluation ecosystems, trainings and methodologies focus too much on methods in the sense of research, and not enough on the need to engage and co-create. Furthermore, they revolve around project-based thinking, assume linear trajectories, and do not reflect dynamic and new development paradigms, which are not easy to measure due to interconnectivities. For this reason, new forms of working need to emerge, including closer collaboration with think-tanks and coalitions, in an effort to move away from the view that evaluators possess the exclusive right to judge.

In line with these considerations, Prof Eliadis underscored the need to think about human rights as a broad transformative framework in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Evaluation, historically, has not done a great job about understanding or integrating human rights into its framework, except as one of many principles and ethical ideas that evaluators consider. As a result, Prof Eliadis argued that it needs to be frontloaded, and given a much higher rank in the hierarchy of evaluation practice.

Looking ahead, Dr Rist stressed the need to recognize that the crisis is still underway. Broad pronouncements are neither warranted nor required. Instead, brief and careful evaluation studies are mandated. These should start by recognizing that an emerging trend from the pandemic is that it is strengthening the institutionalization and reach of big government. This stands in contrast to several previous decades, in which the role of government had been reduced in size and scope, and societies had increasingly relied on the market.

‘Policy Evaluation in the Era of COVID-19’ is the first book to offer a broad canvas that explores government responses and ideas to tackle the challenges that evaluation practice faces in preparing for the next global crisis. Contributors examine the impacts of evaluation on socioeconomic recovery planning, government innovations in pivoting internal operations to address the crisis, and the role of parliamentary and audit institutions during the pandemic. Chapters also example the SDGs, and the inadequacy of human rights-based approaches in evaluation, while examining the imperative proposed by some authors that it is time that we take seriously the call for substantial transformation.

Written in a clear and accessible style, Policy Evaluation in the Era of COVID-19 offers a much-needed insight on the role evaluation played during this unique and critical juncture in history. The volume is now available in Open Access.

For further information, please contact Alexander Voccia [here]

• To download a free copy of the book ‘Policy Evaluation in the Era of COVID-19’, please click here.
• To purchase a hard copy of the book ‘Policy Evaluation in the Era of COVID-19’, please click here.
• To view the live recording of the webinar, please click here.

• To access the brochure ‘More than a journey | 20 years of independence, please click here.
• To access Fabrizio Felloni’s interview on the evolution of independence of IOE, please click here.
• To learn why independent evaluation makes IFAD a more credible institution, please click here.

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