THE ART OF BEING A FACILITATOR

22 November, 201926 June, 2020Leave a comment

One of the most eagerly awaited sessions began with a challenge for those participants who arrived late: to carry out the Make an Eight forfeit, which involved drawing a figure of 8 with their bodies. This was a fun way to start our discussion on the following question: “What are we talking about when we refer to facilitation and facilitators?”.

Using a kinaesthetic version of multiple choice, the participants decided between true and false options regarding evaluation matrices, questions, social action theory, sources and tools.

Jorge Chávez–Tafur ran the session for facilitators and invited us to use introspection and hindsight to evaluate our own practice. He also took us on a tour of accepted international definitions of the term facilitation, which included entries as varied as yanapai -a Quechua term which means help- and Voorlichtingskunde -which alludes to the science of “lighting the way” in Dutch-. Taking into account the diversity of names, which at times shared little in common, he insisted that rather than agree on terms, the important thing was to capture all that they covered: content, effects and impact.

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PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION INSIDE THE TREASURE CHEST

20 November, 201926 June, 2020Leave a comment

The third day began with a “treasure” hunt! But instead of searching for golden coins, the participants were let loose in the large hotel patios to find elements which make the participatory evaluation process more rigorous and legitimate.

In two groups, the participants looked for cards which featured steps involved in the traditional evaluation process but which also evoke basic aspects of PE. This led to a conversation about the sought-after rigorousness involved in: identifying stakeholders, formulating objectives and questions to gather information, creating working plans, gathering information, analysis and reporting as well as improvement measures.

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PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION AS A KEY TO EMPOWERMENT FIRST DAY OF THE GATHERING FROM THE EARTH’S ‘CENTRE’.

18 November, 201926 June, 2020Leave a comment

With welcoming smiles and anticipation in their eyes, the participants shared their accents, nuances and idioms around a single topic: their experiences with Participatory Evaluation.

After personal and institutional introductions, one question caught the participants by surprise: “What do I like about myself”.

Despite their humility and the fact that they were not used to talking so openly about themselves, everyone agreed on the same characteristics; passionate, intrepid, curious, humble and ready to learn. It was as if Participatory Evaluation attracts all those willing to be disruptive, not only in their personal lives but also in all the domains they come into contact with.

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THE FIRST GATHERING OF EXPERIENCES IS COMING!

21 October, 201925 June, 2020Leave a comment

Hello friends! Not long now until we have our First Gathering of Participatory Evaluation Experiences for the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, which will take place in Quito, Ecuador from 18 to 22 November 2019.

Motivation

The motivation behind this gathering is in part the recognition that there already exists a diversity of participatory evaluation experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our open call was widely accepted and we have selected 16 experiences of this type of evaluation which we think reflect the great diversity and richness present in our region.

They include experiences which all, explicitly or implicitly, have a clear transformative intention; experiences which encourage the social action participants (whether in a policy, programme or project) to take a leading role in evaluation. We have invited to this first gathering those who have used their evaluative practice to facilitate these processes and to strengthen and build capacity in organisations. Continue reading →

PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION: A JOURNEY IN OVERCOMING PRECONCEIVED IDEAS ABOUT EVALUATION

19 October, 201926 June, 2020Leave a comment

The programme, Servicio País (from the Poverty Alleviation Foundation) started working on Participatory Evaluation (PE) several years ago in a somewhat desperate attempt to conduct evaluations that were more coherent with the programme’s internal logic. It promotes a promotional and collective model which puts local organisations at the heart of development instead of individuals.

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MEETING FOR A COMMON CAUSE: THE ROLE OF THE ‘TEAM’ IN PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION

14 October, 201925 June, 2020Leave a comment

One of the main characteristics of participatory evaluation is that of forming evaluation teams which give local stakeholders the leading role.

It is precisely this local element which ensures that we have trustworthy knowledge about the reality we are evaluating. It incorporates experience from ‘on the ground’ with specific subject knowledge relevant to the evaluation. Making the local context central to the process brings the challenge to find a balance between the “opportunity to participate with the capacity to participate”, enabling a harmonious development of various social, political and cultural experiences.

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EVALUATION AND THE CENTRAL ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY. REFLECTIONS AS PREPARATION FOR THE FIRST GATHERING OF PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION (PE) EXPERIENCES FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

30 September, 201926 June, 2020Leave a comment

Interest in evaluating public policies has grown significantly in the last fifteen years. This is reflected in theoretical and methodological production as well in the increase of national evaluation policies in countries of all continents. It is also seen in the increasing institutionalisation of evaluation and a surge of initiatives focused on making this practice more professional. Since the 2015 ‘International Year of Evaluation’ evaluation has become a global trend. This has made the main international development organisations converge their interests and actions with regional evaluation networks (VOPEs), foundations, various government bodies, non-governmental organisations and academia; all of whom are interested in maximising evaluation as an instrument for improving public policies.

In addition to this, the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were an important step forward for evaluation theory and practice. With regard to our context, the idea is to generate a new agenda of global evaluation priorities from 2016 to 2030 which aims to bridge the gap between the community of evaluators (supply) and the community of decision makers (demand), giving a central role to civil society as way of ensuring that evaluations do not only respond to the needs of end users but also meet evidence-based quality standards which are credible and can be used to create and manage public policies.

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Adding experiences and lessons learned!

13 August, 201926 June, 2020Leave a comment

Hello colleagues and friends! We wanted to let you know that we have “uploaded” a new evaluation experience that integrates social participation to the Resources section of EvalParticipativa.

It is called “Mejora de la calidad educativa para la inserción de poblaciones vulnerables en América Latina” (Improving educational quality for integration of vulnerable groups in Latin America), rolled out by Entreculturas and Fe y Alegria, with the support of the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID) between 2010 and 2015.

You can access the final report and two informative videos on the evaluation’s process and results in Chapter 6 of RESOURCES/EvalParticipativa experiences.

We would like to thank Belén Rodríguez Navas from the Unit of Planning, Evaluation and Quality at Entreculturas for getting involved with EvalParticipativa and sharing this valuable material with us. We would like to invite all those who have participated in similar experiences to share what you have learned with us!

Greetings from the EvalParticipativa team!

Call to present participatory evaluation experiences from Latin America and the Caribbean

15 July, 201925 June, 2020Leave a comment

Dear colleagues,

We would like to announce a call to present positive experiences of participatory evaluation developed in Latin America and the Caribbean. Those accepted will constitute the first stage in developing the first regional gathering on the topic, organised by EvalParticipativa, developed by PETAS at the National University of San Juan and the FOCELAC project by DEval, which will take place at the end of November. The country, place and dates are to be confirmed. We will shortly provide more details on the project and this invitation to participate.

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Participatory Evaluation for action. TECHO experiences in Chile and Mexico

12 June, 201925 June, 2020Leave a comment

An online seminar was held on 6 June to share participatory evaluation experiences from the ‘Mesas de Trabajo’ (Working Groups) run by TECHO in Latin America and the Caribbean.

More than forty people from different countries in the region participated. They shared the common strategy designed to evaluate these experiences, highlighting aspects such as the results, process, methodologies, difficulties and achievements.

TECHO is an organisation which works to eradicate poverty in human settlements in Latin America. This is achieved through the combined efforts of residents living in poverty and exclusion and young volunteers.

By working together, they implement projects that respond to the main issues identified in the community such as the need to construct emergency housing, manage access to essential services or construct shared spaces.

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