A Costa Rican experience of participatory evaluation that transformed perspectives and practices
by Karol Cruz Ugalde, Eddy García Serrano and Juan Murciano
What happens when those who have historically been evaluated become co-evaluators? How can such a change be fostered, managed, and capitalized upon? Is it possible to promote participatory evaluation from within public institutions? How?
These were some of the questions that prompted us to write this chapter about the evaluation of the Program for the Promotion of the Autonomy of Persons with Disabilities in Costa Rica. We did not want to recount a technical process full of methodologies and results, but rather to share, from within, a living, challenging, and deeply human experience.
Within these pages, readers will find the Costa Rican context —a country with a legal framework that recognizes the rights of persons with disabilities, but which still faces great challenges in making those rights a part of daily life. Presenting this backdrop was essential, as it grounds the very purpose of our work: to show how evaluation can be a tool for transformation and democratic strengthening.
I’m genuinely delighted to share a personal take on Chapter 7: Participatory evaluation of a public transport support policy: an inclusion and transformation perspective – Jalisco (Mexico), recently published in the book Evaluation, Democracy and Transformation: Experiences of Participatory Evaluation in Latin America. I co-wrote it with Sugey Salazar and Selene Michi, and together with other colleagues we reflect on what it really means to carry out public policy evaluation using participatory approaches from within the public sector.
As we close this seven-year cycle of collective work, we wish to celebrate what we have built together: a vibrant community of practice and learning around participatory evaluation and inclusive approaches. Within it, every voice has contributed, every shared experience has enriched us, and every encounter has woven bonds that go beyond isolated practices, now reaching more than four thousand people and multiple organizations.
Dear friends of EvalParticipativa,
Dr Vanesa Castro, professor and researcher from 
In this first activity, Vanesa facilitated a training session for the team in charge of the Evaluation of the Promotion of Organic Agriculture in Costa Rica, with the participation of representatives from MIDEPLAN, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) and the Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED). The activity took place at the UNED and began with a development of a conceptual framework on the importance of designing data collection tools and the general criteria for selecting and using participatory tools.
This seminar was developed online and onsite through the Postgraduate Program in Evaluation of Development Programs and Projects that has being implemented by the University of Costa Rica for more than twenty years. The activity brought together advanced students of the master’s program, graduate professionals and professors interested on adopting participatory approaches in their research or professional practices.
A third activity was the training on conceptual and instrumental approaches to evaluation with focus on social inclusion, held at the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy (MIDEPLAN) and jointly organized with the Evaluation and Monitoring Unit of MIDEPLAN, FLACSO and the Postgraduate Program in Evaluation of Development Programs and Projects of the University of Costa Rica (UCR-PEPPD).
This last training, held at FLACSO Costa Rica’s headquarters, was organized jointly with the Institute for Municipal Development and Advisory Services (IFAM). The purpose of the training was to strengthen the planning and evaluation capacities of municipal officials.
Last month, in Limbe, Cameroon, we had the Storytelling & Participatory Evaluation Retreat, named “Leveraging Indigenous Heritage for Participatory and Innovative Evaluation”.
A while back, we began working with colleagues in the region on the concepts of evaluation, inclusion and democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the new EvalParticipativa project (2023-2024) we plan to revisit these ideas and produce a book on the subject. Our aim is to identify participatory evaluation experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean, analysing dimensions of inclusion and democracy, and emphasising the learning components generated by these experiences.
This brief post is therefore an invitation to friends and colleagues of EvalParticipativa who are interested in contributing a chapter to the book to email their ideas to 
Earlier this week we took part in the gLOCAL 2023 roundtable discussion, CHALLENGES IN PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION: A FEMINIST AND DECOLONIAL APPROACH. The activity was organised jointly with 
Dear colleagues, we are thrilled to announce that the winners of the 
The gLOCAL Evaluation Week (”gLOCAL”), is an annual dedicated week for Monitoring and Evaluation (“M&E”) knowledge and experience sharing events around the globe, was launched in 2019. In the short time since gLOCAL was launched, organizing partners from around the world have hosted nearly 1000 M&E focused events across five continents in multiple languages. During gLOCAL, government officials, evaluation practitioners, academics and researchers, and students, among many others, have joined this global movement to discuss M&E issues, connecting with one another to share their knowledge and experiences in this field.