Dear colleagues, we are thrilled to announce that the winners of the EVALPARTICIPATIVA AWARD FOR ACADEMIC PRODUCTION have been selected.

We put out the call for papers at the end of 2021 with the aim of deepening academic and scientific knowledge concerning participatory evaluation as part of a wider approach of inclusive evaluation that is relevant to the 2030 Agenda.

The call was open for four months, during which time we received a variety of theoretical and empirical papers. Most of the papers prioritised an empirical approach, providing new elements for action-based reflection on participatory evaluation approaches, addressing case studies or comparing initiatives developed in the region.

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Since 2019, the EvalParticipativa community of practice and learning has been working on a path of knowledge and deepening of participatory evaluation experiences carried out in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our virtual platform is witness to the cases and experiences that we have presented, as well as the reflections on meaningful lessons generated in them, and the growing amount of resources (videos, manuals, tools) focused on the field of participatory evaluation that have been added.

In order to strengthen the institutionalisation of participatory evaluation in the region, we have planned to develop different activities during this period 2021 and 2022 in conjunction with multiple actors. A very special activity is the call for the EvalParticipativa Award for Academic Production, which aims to deepen analytical approaches that reflect on this type of evaluation in general or on some of its dimensions, potential, characteristics, etc.

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Some of the EvalParticipativa member entities such as Techo, ReLAC, DEval or PETAS, have participated in a working group since 2018 to create an index to measure each country’s evaluation capacities.

This index, based on 76 indicators, has been named INCE and is highly useful for guiding how evaluation is developed at national level. It is also useful for academic production, identifying good practices, opening up opportunities for collaboration within and between nationals, etc.

The participation of Techo and other social organisations in the working group has enabled civil society’s perspective to be integrated into the definitions of the dimensions that make up the INCE. This collective, important and fundamental in how evaluation develops in reality, is also expected to participate in the periodic measurements that are taken in the region’s countries that request it.

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Since 2019, the EvalParticipativa initiative, a community of practice and learning for participatory evaluation in Latin America and the Caribbean, has been run by PETAS, the only academic centre in the region with a research and training programme specialising in collaborative and participatory evaluation approaches; together with the Focelac+ project, run by the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval); and the Costa Rican Ministry of Planning (Mideplan). After the first two years of the project came to a close, the UNSJ and Focelac+ renewed their agreement so they could run new activities in 2021-2022 with the aim of continuing in the same spirit and deepening the initiative’s scope.

In line with the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, we centre our focus on strengthening the role of civil society in policy and programme evaluations that directly affect them. We are guided by our desire to increase the participation of various different social stakeholders and give them leading roles when evaluating initiatives that affect and involve them. This means we have to deepen knowledge around conditions and mechanisms that facilitate or complicate effective citizen participation in evaluation processes.

Over the next 18 months, we intend to continue learning from concrete experiences of participatory evaluation in the region, maximising their scope of influence and sharing methods and tool. This work stems from our conviction that these approaches:

• • • strengthen participating organisations so that they have greater control over their own development;
    • improve their capacity to reflect, analyse and propose solutions,
    • benefit from new and different knowledge held by relevant stakeholders in order to create better policies, programmes and projects; and
    • contribute to building more inclusive and equal societies.

We are guided by our objective to maximise the inclusive involvement of civil society in evaluation processes by strengthening and consolidating EvalParticipativa as a community of practice and learning, facilitating the multiplication and institutionalisation of this evaluation approach and initiating training processes on the same topic.

The activities that we have planned can be grouped into the following categories:

1. MANAGING THE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE AND LEARNING

Evalparticipativa’s online platform has been the hub and meeting place for this evaluation community. We will work on maintaining and keeping its different sections up to date, adding posts, handbooks and tools as well as identifying and documenting new experiences of high-quality Participatory Evaluation and meaningful lessons on the topic in the region.

The space for exchanging and sharing information will be hosted online through thematic forums as requested by members of the EvalParticipativa community. And we will extend the practice of sharing our web content through social networks and platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.

2. PROMOTING PE INSTITUTIONALISATION IN THE REGION

We intend to offer talks to disseminate information on the reality of participatory evaluation in conferences, postgraduate courses and events. We will recover some of the valuable articles and experiences documented on the EvalParticipativa platform in order to publish an online document or booklet.

We also want to set up the EvalParticipativa Prize for the best academic production regarding Participatory Evaluation, open to evaluations, research projects, essays and theses on participatory evaluation.

3. DISEMMINATING AND FACILITATING THE USE OF THE SOWING AND HARVESTING HANDBOOK

We will reinforce activities that present and disseminate the Sowing and Harvesting handbook. We will create audio-visual material that illustrates its content with real examples, both in terms of participatory evaluation cases and in experiences of meaningful lessons. In addition to the printed version of the handbook, we will publish the English version digitally to enable us to further dialogue with stakeholders from other regions.

4. COURSES TO FACILITATE PARTICIPATORY EVALUATIONS

We will develop participatory evaluation training sessions, both online and in-person. The latter will be delivered to agencies of our main funder, the German Cooperation Ministry, with an initial focus on Ecuador and Colombia that will then be expanded to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean.

We will begin a process of identifying organisations interested in this in order to combine efforts and implement it. These may be non-governmental development organisations, academic institutions, civil organisations, etc. The course will enable us to present and implement the Teaching Guide with the participants in order to facilitate participatory evaluation courses.

As can be seen, the future is sure to be busy and exciting for those of us who are seeking to make evaluation experiences increasingly participatory. We trust that the members of our community of practice and learning, EvalParticipativa, will be increasingly active and that we will gain new members interested in the topic. We are very pleased with the support and attention received so far, and we would like to invite you to continue to contribute your experiences so we can mutually help each other advance. We will keep you informed of advances and news. See you soon.

We are beginning the second stage of EvalParticipativa with a new activity plan that we will share soon. In the meantime we invite you to listen to the testimony of Juan Carlos Sanz, who represents DEval in the Coordinating Team of this regional initiative.

In this video (English subtitles) Juan highlights the particular features of participatory evaluation, such as the main role that the stakeholders play in analysing and assessing an intervention in which they themselves have been involved. He also emphasises the importance of thoroughness in participatory evaluation as this will provide credibility and will help to adopt the changes and improvements to the evaluated project. Lastly, he extends an invitation to join the Community for Practice and Learning EvalParticipativa so as to exchange lessons learnt and improve abilities in this evaluation approach.

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In this video (with English subtitles), Matthias Casasco from TECHO Chile highlights the importance of participatory evaluation as a tool with the potential to provide a bridge between the locals’ voices and decision making.

He also points out how important it is to successfully generate spaces for reflection in the communities to discuss their problems and projects as well as community organising. The main goal of the participatory evaluation process, Matthias claims, is that local stakeholders take ownership of the process.

Matthias Casasco has a Master’s degree in Political Science from Sciences Po Rennes (France). He has specialised in housing and urban development policies. Matthias has been living in Santiago de Chile for nine years and is now in charge of the program for Housing Solutions at the TECHO-Chile foundation. In this capacity, he joins the communities of popular settlements on their journey to their right to adequate housing and connects them with the housing programs of the Chilean state. As a member of the EvalParticipativa community, he has worked on the design and implementation of a participatory evaluation pilot program in the Santa Teresa camp, on the outskirts of Santiago de Chile.