Trainer: Andy Rowe and Patricia Judith Rogers
Level: Beginning/intermediate
Language: English
Workshop description:
While there is now greater awareness and willingness to address environmental sustainability in evaluations, it is not clear how to do this. This workshop is designed to support experienced evaluation commissioners and evaluators to address environmental sustainability in evaluation even when this is not part of the stated objectives of the program, project or policy. The workshop offers practical tools for immediate use and introduces participants to open-access resources and free networks for ongoing learning and professional support.
The workshop will introduce participants to a range of approaches, tools, and insights and offer guidance on which are most suitable in particular situations. The workshop seeks to advance the contributions of evaluation to a sustainable planet by joining the considerable knowledge and experience of participants with the tools and approaches developed by the Footprint Evaluation Initiative over the past three years.
The workshop will cover evaluation undertakings from start to end, from commissioning and designing to reporting and communications. It will provide an overall framework to plan an evaluation; approaches to incorporate biophysical science knowledge and identify and engage key stakeholders from both systems; key evaluation questions to enable the use of evaluation criteria such as the OECD-DAC to explicitly address both human and natural systems; guidance on mapping the reach of the evaluand to natural as well as human systems and using this mapping to incorporate sustainability into the Theory of Change; a typology and rubrics to evaluate the impact of your evaluand on natural systems; information sources and methods not usually included in evaluation such as modeling, GIS, scenario simulations, storytelling and how to address the temporal and spatial scales relevant for both human and natural systems. These tools and approaches will enable evaluation practitioners to address sustainability in their evaluations.
The workshop will use a mix of presentations, individual exercises, small-group exercises, and discussion and whole-group discussions to encourage effective learning. It will include a number of case studies of evaluations. Participants will have the opportunity to apply the workshop content to their own examples and to discuss potential challenges and opportunities as well as share their relevant experience. Overall, the workshop focuses on the broad environmental aspects of sustainable development. It also introduces methodological innovations and includes a discussion of the implications for national M & E systems.
The workshop is most suitable for government officials responsible for developing or implementing evaluation policy across government or within one department; evaluation commissioners and evaluators; evaluation educators, NGOs with an evaluation capacity Learning outcomes:
Upon successfully completing this course:
Those commissioning evaluations (government officials, development organizations) will be able to:
- Identify a number of ways in which evaluations can address environmental sustainability
- Analyse a particular evaluation in terms of factors that might help or hinder addressing environmental sustainability
- Understand how OECD-DAC criteria can be used to include environmental sustainability in the scope of an evaluation
- Identify a number of ways in which national M and E systems can better address environmental sustainability
- Access and use additional resources to support the ongoing strengthening of organizational and individual capacity to address environmental sustainability in evaluations
Those designing and/or conducting evaluations (government, development organizations, civil society, evaluators) will be able to:
- Identify a number of ways in which evaluations can address environmental sustainability • Draw on a range of strategies to build consideration of environmental sustainability into the design and implementation of an evaluation
- Analyze a particular evaluation in terms of factors that might help or hinder addressing environmental sustainability
- Access and use additional resources to support their ongoing learning about ways to address environmental sustainability in evaluations