The conference is a platform for sharing knowledge and experiences in developing sustainable and effective monitoring and evaluation systems to support the use of evidence to make better decisions, and ultimately to improve people’s lives. It provides opportunities to:

The event will take place over four days (25-28 October), starting with a day dedicated to pre-conference training workshops (25 October), followed by three days of conference proceedings (26-28 October).

The conference offers multiple spaces for engagement. Proceedings will comprise a mix of plenary sessions combined with parallel sessions on a range of themes/topics. Formats will range from plenary deliveries to innovative arrangements facilitating informal discussion and exchange of experience among participants.

The one-day in-person training workshops will focus on the most pressing development challenges and how evaluation responds to them. Participants will have the opportunity to explore subjects in-depth, under the guidance of experts from around the world and across the evaluation community.

The conference also offers opportunities for different UN and GEI bodies to host side meetings. During these meetings members of the GEI governance bodies can meet and engage with representatives from programme countries benefiting from GEI support, and forge new partnerships.

The main working language of the conference will be English, with selected sessions and training workshops organized in other selected UN languages. Simultaneous interpretation in Spanish and French will be available for all conference sessions.

Participants

The primary audience of the 2022 NEC conference is government officials from national and sub-national institutions directly and indirectly engaged with evaluation and public policy, including central planning and finance ministries, sectoral ministries, evaluation units, national statistical agencies, supreme audit institutions.

Other evaluation stakeholders, including the private sector, civil society, academia, UNDP, GEI, UN agencies and partner staff engaged in supporting national governments on evaluation, governance and/or the SDG agenda, evaluators, evaluation networks, and other members of the wider global evaluation community will also be invited to the conference.

Bursary programme

Participants, including government representatives, will be expected to fully finance the participation of their representatives to the conference. UNDP is also establishing a bursary fund to finance participants from programme countries who would not otherwise be able to attend the conference. Bursaries are earmarked for representatives of national institutions responsible for conducting and commissioning evaluations, policy makers, particularly those working on the SDGs, and other national evaluation stakeholders.

Bursary applicants will be invited to submit an abstract on a topic related to the conference theme, accompanied by a statement of interest explaining how the conference and training programme will contribute to their current work and how the knowledge acquired will strengthen the national evaluation system.

Conference registration and fees

Conference registration opens in July 2022 and closes on 25 August 2022.

In-person attendance at the conference is by invitation only. There are no registration fees for the conference.

Safety and security at the venue

The venue has been chosen keeping in mind the safety and security of participants, including measures to guard against the spread of COVID-19. The venue is easily reached from Turin-Caselle International Airport

How do I participate in the 2022 NEC conference?

• The conference will be a hybrid event, both virtual and in-person.
• Virtual participation will be open to all the relevant stakeholder groups and virtual conference registration will open in August.
• In-person participation will be by invitation due to limited space.
• In order to be considered for in-person attendance, an abstract must be submitted through the dedicated section (link); abstracts will then be screened and IEO will send invitations to selected applicants for their participation in person.

Who can participate in the 2022 NEC conference?

• The primary audience of the NEC Conference 2022 is Government officials from national and sub-national institutions, directly and indirectly, engaged with evaluation and public policy (including central planning and finance ministries, sectoral ministries, evaluation units, national statistical agencies, and supreme audit institutions).
• participation of the private sector, civil society organizations, and academia is also encouraged, as providers of monitoring and evaluation oversight and accountability agencies.
• UNDP and UN Agency partner staff engaged in supporting national governments on evaluation, governance as well as evaluation networks, and other members of the wider global evaluation community will also be invited to the conference.

What are the main themes covered by the 2022 NEC conference?

• The themes are explained in the conference flyer. They include:
  • National evaluation systems: people, processes, and systems
  • Sustainable development: people, planet, and peace; gender equality and social inclusion; climate change governance; and fragility, conflict, and violence
  • Methodological innovations for a new world

How do I submit an abstract?

• Abstracts need to be submitted through the dedicated webpage and should follow the guidance provided.

Can abstract proposals include more than one presenter, either from the same institution or different institutions?

• Yes, proposals can include the participation of more than one presenter, either from the same institution or from a different one.

Is there a registration fee and is a bursary option available?

• There is no registration fee for the conference.
• Participants, including government representatives, are expected to cover their costs for attending the conference in person (e.g. travel, accommodation).
• A bursary fund is being established to cover some participants' costs. Applications for the bursary should be made as part of the abstract submission form, where there is a dedicated question on this.
• Bursaries are earmarked for representatives of national institutions responsible for conducting and commissioning evaluations, policymakers, particularly those working on the SDGs, and other national evaluation stakeholders. CSOs and Academia are also welcome to submit abstracts and bursary requests for consideration.
• Bursary applicants will be invited to submit an abstract on a topic related to the conference theme, accompanied by a statement of interest explaining how the conference and training programme will contribute to their current work and how the knowledge acquired will strengthen the national evaluation system.

What is the language of the conference and is interpretation provided?

• The main working language of the conference will be English, with selected sessions and training workshops organized in other selected UN languages.
• Simultaneous interpretation in Spanish and French will be available for all conference sessions.

The National Evaluation Capacities Conference series is designed to offer opportunities to share experiences and learning between government officials, civil society organizations, evaluation associations and the global evaluation community.

The deadline for abstracts submission is now closed.

We are pleased to invite government officials engaged in evaluation and/or the SDG agenda and its follow-up and review processes, evaluation professionals, and other evaluation stakeholders to submit abstracts.

Proposed topics

Submissions related to the broad theme of resilient national evaluation systems are strongly encouraged. An inexhaustive list of suggested topics is listed below.

Practical examples of interest to fellow practitioners are particularly welcome. This could include innovation (an innovative nationally-led evaluation, new methods, ways of integrating the SDGs into an evaluation); examples of recommendations informing policy or procedure (an evaluation that led to policy change, experiences of institutionalizing evaluations and policy frameworks, a discussion between an evaluator and an evaluand about how an evaluation has been used, successful stakeholder engagement, or new institutional arrangements); or of challenges faced and lessons learned.

1. Resilient national evaluation systems: people, processes and systems

• Inclusive and resilient national evaluation systems: leaving no-one behind.
• Strengthening evidence-based decision making at the country level: challenges and recommendations.
• Progress in strengthening enabling environments, national evaluation policy frameworks and institutional arrangements.
• National policies and capabilities for evidence-based planning and results-based governance.
• Overcoming challenges in institutionalizing evaluation.
• Citizen engagement in national evaluation systems.
• Evaluation makes a difference: examples of evaluations leading to change.
• Partnerships with civil society and the private sector to bolster national evaluation capacities.
• Use of evaluation and knowledge management to inform national development
• Credible national data systems for evaluating progress towards the SDGs.

2. Sustainable development: people, planet, and peace

  People and prosperity

• Public sector governance, evaluations and the SDGs: lessons learned and challenges faced.
• Gender equality and social inclusion to leave no-one behind: what have we learned?
• Assessing multidimensional sustainability: lessons from livelihoods and social protection programmes.
• Leaving no-one behind: gender and human-rights responsive evaluations.
• Evaluation and inequalities.

 Planet

• Evaluating climate governance: dealing with risks and uncertainty.
• Energy security, climate change and sustainable development: issues, challenges and lessons learned.
• Assessing the environment and social safeguards: lessons from evaluations.
• Evaluation challenges at the intersection of the environmental and the human spheres.
• Case studies of national evaluations of the SDGs/national sustainable development policies.

Peace and partnerships

• Evaluations in the context of fragility, conflict and peace: lessons and challenges.
• Social protection and resilience: lessons from livelihoods support programmes in crisis, fragile and humanitarian contexts.
• Evaluation and governance or peacebuilding.
• Private sector partnerships and their contributions to achieving the SDGs: rhetoric and reality.
• Evaluation and the private sector.
• Evaluations and civil society organizations, think tanks and academia.

3. Evaluation methods for a new world

• Innovations in evaluation: artificial intelligence, digital and geo-spatial techniques.
• Evaluations in the time of COVID-19: challenges and lessons learned.
• Evaluation and multi-dimensional realities (migration, for example).
• Dealing with complexity in evaluations in an increasingly interconnected world.
• Evaluations and Big Data: practical challenges and lessons learned.
• Outcome mapping: managing complexities beyond the sphere of control.
• Impact evaluations for real-time decision making.
• Evaluation in crisis contexts. Data innovations and evaluation.
• Context, culture and diversity in evaluation.
• Complexity and evaluation of progress towards the SDGs.
• Managing politics and power in evaluation.
• Behavioral science and evaluation.

Selection process

The selection committee will review abstracts using the following criteria:

1. Relevance: The proposed presentation should be aligned with the conference theme and one or more of the conference strands.
2. Clarity and quality: The abstract should clearly explain the example to be presented. Authors should prepare their abstracts with care, ensuring that the reader will understand the background of the issue(s), and the objectives and relevance of the proposed topic for presentation.
3. Specificity and concreteness: The abstract must present a topic that includes concrete and specific examples (a good practice, lesson learned and/or a challenge that was overcome, for example).
4. Innovation: The abstract must show an innovation or introduce a new topic or application in the field of interest.
5. Gender equality and disability rights: Speakers will be selected with diversity and inclusion in mind, to promote a broad range of perspectives.
6. Diversity: The NEC organizing team aims to give space to as many different countries and cultural viewpoints as possible.

Based on these criteria and the potential added value of abstracts to the general theme, the selection committee will select proposals, and assign themes, sessions and the presentation form. The final decisions will be conveyed by or before 31 July 2022.

Authors of selected proposals will be invited to submit a short paper (3-4 pages) to be included in a publication of the conference proceedings.

 Submission procedure

The deadline for abstracts submission is now closed.

For any questions over content or any other aspect of the abstracts, please email ieo.nec@undp.org.

Conference Manager

Yogesh Bhatt
Senior Evaluation Specialist
Independent Evaluation Office
New York, USA

Press Enquiries

Kate Pond
Communications Specialist
Independent Evaluation Office
New York, USA

ieo.nec@undp.org
 

INTRODUCTION

Over 300 participants from more than 100 countries, representing national governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies, international development and humanitarian agencies, civil society and the international evaluation community gathered in Turin from 25 to 28 October 2022 to discuss the development of resilient national evaluation systems that inform policy and other decision making in a rapidly changing world.

This Agenda builds on the learning and experiences that were shared and discussed during the Turin conference. It serves as a common framework for action and collective commitment to rapidly and sustainably strengthen national evaluation.

TURIN AGENDA

We, the participants in the 2022 National Evaluation Capacities Conference (Turin Italy, October 25-28), collectively agree on the following.

We note that since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic:

• At the midway point of the 2030 Agenda, progress towards the SDGs has slowed and reversed in many countries and regions of the world.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global health and economic crisis impacting the ability of many countries to respond to crises.
• The health crisis has been compounded by rising geopolitical tensions, which are exposing the fragility of global systems and sustainable development pathways, as well as their vulnerability to disruption.
• Inequality has intensified, with profound and deepening disparities in access to resources and opportunities for different groups of people.
• Multiple crises have further intensified gender inequality with a regressive social and economic impact on women and girls.
• The negative impacts of climate change are accelerating and disproportionately affecting vulnerable nations and populations least able to cope.
• Overlapping crises are challenging the very tenets of existing development paradigms, and we must re-envision our conceptual frameworks and push for greater innovation, creativity and adaptation in evaluation systems and practices.
• Development data and statistics fundamental to monitoring SDG progress as well as policy evaluations are evolving but not at the pace required.
• The opportunities and possibilities offered through digital transformation show great promise, even as access to the internet remains beyond the reach of a third of the world’s population and risks of deepening social inequalities, disinformation and polarization continue.

We further note that:

• We are rapidly approaching the time when decisions will be made about the transition beyond the Sustainable Development Goals. To support this turning point in the international development agenda, evaluation must play a greater role in providing decision makers with the evidence that they need to make decisions for the world today and beyond 2030.

We recognise that as a result, national evaluation systems need to:

• Be led by national governments, respecting the principle of national ownership over the development process and ensure their sustainability through national resource allocation.
• Urgently develop capacities to provide timely, credible and robust evidence to policymakers and policy implementation processes, to support efforts to build forward better.
• Be ever more agile and flexible to rapidly meet shifting and urgent needs for evidence to guide policies and practices.
• Actively seek to connect with evidence generated by relevant - and not just traditional - research and statistical disciplines, as well as administrative data and monitoring processes and systems.
• Ensure linkages across sectors, spheres of government and geographical locations in more comprehensive national evaluation systems.
• Be led by contextual specificities in all aspects of evaluation planning, processes and practices.
• Consider fragility and resilience in all aspects of evaluation planning and implementation, including how evaluation can contribute to peace building and rehabilitation, taking proper account of the context, relevant risks and threats.
• Prioritise inclusiveness and leaving no-one behind, and efforts to address intersecting inequalities.
• Actively give voice to people from all walks of life, paying special attention to youth, women and girls, and those who are often excluded and marginalised.
• Meaningfully mainstream environmental sustainability and climate considerations when evaluating policies, programmes or portfolios of work, to foster the consistent integration of mitigation and adaptation efforts into system design and implementation.
• Prioritise access to, and the adoption of, inclusive digital strategies and solutions, especially those that also reduce the environmental impacts of evaluation.

Therefore, recognizing these imperatives and the complex contexts within which we work, we will strive to:

• Ensure that our work improves people’s lives building more resilient societies, to support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.
• Create inclusive and transparent systems that actively engage with stakeholders, including government partners, parliamentarians, the private sector, citizens and civil society, and incorporate their diverse and informed viewpoints and expertise to generate credible evidence to support policies and programmes that leave no-one behind.
• Ensure national and subnational evaluation systems respond to distinct national and local contexts and are aligned with national development programmes and strategies.
• Ensure national and subnational evaluation systems are adequately and realistically funded and financed.
• Ensure evaluation systems take into account the potential, current and projected impact of all policies and programmes on climate and ecosystems in order to help avoid, mitigate and address these existential crises affecting our planet and human development.
• Support adaptive systems that can provide rapid information to aid in crisis responses without compromising ethics.
• Emphasise gender equality and social inclusiveness in evaluations and evaluation systems.
• Rapidly develop and support the analysis and mapping of evaluation systems, as well as contextually relevant and culturally appropriate capacity development strategies and metrics to measure their development.
• Develop targeted digital strategies that facilitate innovations in data and evidence collection and analysis and their ethical use.
• Create ample space for young and emerging evaluators to lead and participate in shaping and strengthening national evaluation systems and future development pathways.
• Strengthen partnerships and redouble our efforts to accelerate the development of resilient, agile, flexible, adaptable and forward-looking national evaluation and statistical systems that are utility-focused, integrated into decision-making processes, and help ensure better evidence is generated to support policies that improve peoples’ lives.

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