At the beginning of 2024 we shared the article “The arrival of the two rivers. Scientific storytelling”, in which we analyzed the role of stories rooted in each community when it comes to linking scientific advances and the dissemination of knowledge with the work of local populations, their culture and their impact on research and -why not!- the evaluative field.
In September of the same year we reported on the lessons learned from the Retreat on Storytelling and Participatory Evaluation, that was held in Limbe, Cameroon, organized together with eBASE AFRICA. During this meeting we documented and socialized the rich African traditions of storytelling and its contribution to participatory approaches in evaluation.
Hello community EvalParticipativa. In this post, I will present a tool that has been designed to help people talk about their projects by answering important questions that underpin their intervention’s Theory of Change (ToC).
The ideas I share in this post are largely based on my experience working as an analyst and consultant in the 2018 evaluation of the Mexican Pensión para el Bienestar de las Personas con Discapacidad Permanente (Financial assistance to promote the wellbeing of individuals with permanent disabilities; hereafter 
We continue to share the knowledge and feelings of colleagues and friends who are leaders in participatory evaluation in Latin America and other regions as well. In these podcasts we want to give a close and human perspective, where evaluative practice is closely linked to the personal experiences, stories and territorialities of the interviewees.
The idea for the document shared in this post was first discussed during a conference on monitoring in Germany. Our objective was to identify literature on broadly applicable quality standards or criteria for monitoring that could be considered nearly universal in their validity and application. While such documents exist for evaluation and research, no comparable paper could be found for monitoring.
In this post, I will share some key experiences from a participatory evaluation in Ecuador, including the selection of the intervention to be evaluated and the final presentation of results and recommendations. This participatory evaluation—the first of its kind by the Ecuadorian government—assessed the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion’s Servicio de Espacios de Socialización y Encuentro para Personas Adultas Mayores (Social Interaction Spaces for Older Adults).
On 9 November, the webinar ‘Transformation through evaluation’ hosted a discussion on the intersection of participatory evaluation and the gender perspective. These two pillars are critical to the design of inclusive, equal and transformational evaluations.
From very early on in my professional training, I saw human rights as a tool for challenging and transforming ethically unjust realities. Accordingly, when I graduated as a psychologist, I did not focus on addressing people’s suffering on an individual basis, but rather on understanding it in its collective dimension, designing strategies that sought to transform the social conditions that generate this discomfort.
The Evaluation Expedition is a participatory tool that invites all stakeholders involved in a project to go on a journey through a symbolic forest which represents the complexity of an intervention. Along this journey, participants must respond to key questions that allow them to engage in a comprehensive reflection, dialogue and evaluation of their intervention.