Conference Concept Components Programme
Prepared by:
Conference Steering Committee
For more information, contact:
The IDEAS 2005 Conference Secretariat:
sectt@ideasconference.org
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Introduction |
The International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) is
convening its 1st Biennial Conference in New Delhi, India on the theme
“Evaluation for Development – Beyond Aid”.
This Conference will highlight innovative evaluation thinking and
practices that are emerging in response to the shifts in the way
development is conceptualized and implemented.
The mission of IDEAS is to improve and extend the practice of
development evaluation by refining knowledge, strengthening capacity and
expanding evaluation networks particularly in developing and
transitional countries. IDEAS was conceived to respond to the new
challenges facing the development evaluation community. Three years of
dialogue and consultations among the development evaluation community,
and two specific preparatory events led to its creation1.
Bringing together evaluation practitioners, managers of development and
evaluation, parliamentarians and users of evaluation from countries in
the developing and developed world, the IDEAS Conference aims to
strengthen the practice of evaluation for development, and enhance the
constituency that must drive and govern this dynamic process. New forms
of partnerships, methods and capacities that are needed to reform and
reshape evaluation for development will be highlighted, as well as other
measures that must be taken to strengthen the practice of development
evaluation and the contribution that it makes to secure and sustainable
human development.
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Background and
Rationale for the Conference |
The Conference seeks to promote and empower an emerging constituency
that demands changes in the landscape of development practice and the
evaluation of development processes and outcomes. A growing movement
among development evaluators emerging over the past three years has been
striving to articulate the crucial role that evaluation could play in
promoting improved governance and encouraging policy reform, at the
global, national and sub-national levels. Building on the results of a
Symposium on “Rethinking Development Evaluation” in 2004, members of
IDEAS are establishing communities of practice in order to explore the
parameters of a new development evaluation agenda. Drawing on the
expertise of leading evaluators, development practitioners and civil
society advocates, the Conference will bring together leading evaluation
and development practitioners, parliamentarians, academics and civil
society leaders who will set out key challenges facing the development
evaluation community, and will demonstrate innovative and new approaches
to development evaluation.
In seeking to reshape the evaluation of development, the asymmetrical
paradigms of development itself and its evaluation are challenged by
new, more equitable dynamics. Globalization, security, conflict are
dialectics of development that challenge its sustainability and
relevance to society and human needs. Anchored in IDEAS’s core
principles of making development relevant for countries currently
experiencing poverty, exclusion and human deprivation, one of the main
pillars of the Conference will be to explore how development is
evaluated in a manner that addresses its multiple dimensions. In effect,
the vastly expanded scope of development, transcending aid, needs
an expanded perspective of its evaluation. Three pillars typify this
logic of change:
- The objects of evaluation
- The form in which the evaluation of development is carried out
- The governance and accountability for a new evaluation system
Aid Matters but it is neither enough nor sufficient
Under the current evaluation paradigm, the pursuit of effectiveness in
the utilization of development assistance resources and their efficiency
in addressing the needs of developing societies has yielded microscopic
insights into the mechanics of development. However, the vastly expanded
influences on development, from global to local dynamics; and the wider
range of participants -- international institutions, governments, the
private sector and civil society – call for qualitatively different
objectives for the evaluation of development. Today, the range of
attributive factors on a particular development outcome is much wider
than the evaluation of development assistance is able to account for.
Aid programmes and projects have absorbed the lion’s share of resources
for the evaluation of development. However, recent development
discourses have emphasized that factors and events beyond aid are
critical to the achievement of sustainable development and, in some
instances, may even constrain sustainable development. The evaluation
community has been slow to adapt evaluation frameworks and approaches to
take into account such factors as globalisation, security, human rights,
equity, gender, partnership and policy coherence to name a few critical
issues that underpin the pursuit of sustainable development both within
countries and in the increasingly interdependent global space2.
Yet the majority of development evaluation resources remain focused on
aid projects, processes and mechanisms, with little attention paid to
the assessment of critical factors beyond aid and beyond projects.
Furthermore the involvement of citizens, policy makers and political
leaders in the evaluation process has been limited in evaluation
practice, and as a result, the evaluation of development has operated
well below its potential.
Forms
and Function of Evaluation for Development
Similarly, the forms in which evaluation is carried out, and in
particular the capacities for undertaking the evaluation of development
needs itself to be reformed and strengthened. The large pool of
expertise in the evaluation of aid projects residing in developed
countries and procured largely by development assistance agencies are
now challenged by a growing demand for increased capacities and
diversity of methods for evaluation among developing societies and
countries. Moreover, the prerogative for evaluation, previously centered
on government bureaucracies in both developed and developing societies
are further challenged by growing voices and expertise of civil society,
who advocate participation, human rights and equity; by private sector,
that is increasingly sensitized to issues of corporate social
responsibility; and within the state itself, by an ever-increasing
number of pro-active Parliaments, that are demanding government
accountability.
A significant pillar of the IDEAS Conference will therefore be to debate
the different forms that the reform of development evaluation could
assume, if the capacities of developing countries are to be strengthened
to establish an equitable partnership for the evaluation of development.
Governance with wider
lenses
As the established governance regimes which presided over the global
development agenda begin to understand the full impact of a new global
compact for sustainable development, the governance of the evaluation
function requires considerable re-shaping towards increased
accountability to citizens, especially the poor; and greater emphasis on
learning. In addressing this important aspect of the reshaping of
developing evaluation, IDEAS seeks to engage the key promoters of
development assistance, developing country leaders, civil society
advocates and private sector operators to dialogue about the new
evaluation architecture, including the shape of a new aid evaluation
effort. In this pillar, a “road-map” will be formulated, against which
actions and minimum milestones will be outlined for peer review, to be
coordinated by IDEAS, over the next decade or so.
Rethinking the
Evaluation of Development
A Symposium in July 20043 attended by
eminent evaluators, development practitioners and civil society leaders
defined an agenda for rethinking development evaluation in the context
of a changing global landscape of development. The symposium examined
the shifting landscape in the conception and practice of development and
concluded that global policy trends (trade, globalization, conflict,
environmental pressures) exert enormous pressures on domestic realities
of societies, thereby calling for a need to re-examine the approaches
and tools for evaluating the multiple dimensions of development.
Further, the Symposium recommended the construction of a new evaluation
paradigm that serves the needs of developing societies and its peoples,
by strengthening capacities at the global, national and community
levels. In advocating for re-shaping development evaluation, the
Symposium recommended the exploration of governance arrangements that
reverse asymmetries in development and its evaluation, through enhancing
partnerships, while promoting greater accountability and learning in the
evaluation of development.
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Conference
Objectives |
The principal objectives of the first biennial Conference of IDEAS on
“Evaluation for Development - Beyond Aid” are to:
- highlight the implications of the changing context and concepts of
development for evaluation and the evaluation community
- identify new responses in methods, processes and outcomes shaping
the practice of development evaluation
- share innovative experiences in evaluation methods among
practitioners, users and beneficiaries of development evaluation; and,
- We enjoy Broco fx trading systems for fx trading. examine the new forms of partnerships and capacities needed to
rethink, reshape and reform development evaluation.
Two complementary objectives make this Conference unique. On Day
Three of the Conference, focused partnership sessions have been planned
to give expression to institutions interested in engaging in
partnerships for evaluation. A related set of skill-building and
training workshops will be offered to enhance skills and capacities
among evaluators – targeting policy makers, NGOs and young evaluators
seeking entry into the field of development evaluation -- as well as
those experienced evaluators who wish to update their skills to meet new
evaluation challenges. This will be done through a set of
post-conference training programs focused on specific skills required to
enable evaluators to address new development evaluation challenges. The
skill-building workshops will be led by eminent evaluation resource
persons.
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The
Structure of the Conference
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The Conference comprises (a) Keynote Speakers and Plenary Sessions; (b)
Three consecutive Streams with four parallel sub-sessions in each; (c)
Skill-building workshops; (d) Partnership meetings; and (e) Evaluation
marketplace and posters.
The Conference strives to ensure balance in terms of presentations by
experts from the developed and developing countries, women and men,
academics and practitioners. The Conference will make use of innovative
ways for stimulating debates, generating discussion and encouraging
exchanges.
Opening Plenary Session
The Conference opens with two keynote speakers who will address the new
development agenda and examine the implications of this new agenda for
the evaluation of development.
Conference Streams
and Session Topics
The Conference is organized around three main streams, corresponding to
the three pillars of change identified above, that will define and help
shape the debates throughout the Conference. These are:
- Evaluating the Multiple Dimensions of Development - by outlining
the major shifts occurring in the global landscape of development and
the implications for development evaluation;
- Developing Evaluation - by highlighting new evaluation policy
directions, functions and forms of the future architecture of
development evaluation, including the evaluation of aid, and how these
might be developed and enhanced; and,
- Governing Evaluation - by examining the institutional
arrangements, participants and stakeholders that promote
accountability in development through the use of evaluation.
After the Opening Plenary, the Conference will be driven by parallel
sessions inspired by paper presentations, taking one stream at a time.
Four papers have been identified for each stream (as outlined below).
Each paper will be prepared and presented by a lead author, followed by
comments and questions from participants in the session. These
discussions are intended to provide a critique of the paper presented
and also identify key questions that require further reflection by the
session
Each session shall have a Chair/moderator to moderate and manage the
discussion and summarize the major questions and issues emerging at the
end of the session. The Chair/moderator will also have the
responsibility of presenting the issues for synthesis in a plenary after
the parallel sessions.
After parallel paper discussion sessions have been completed for each
stream, the Conference re-convenes in plenary sessions to examine and
debate the implications of the four topics examined during the paper
sessions. The chair/moderators in the parallel paper sessions then
become the panelists for the plenary, with one of them being the
moderator to stimulate debate of the issues during plenary.
Stream I: Evaluating the Multiple Dimensions of Development
Taking cognizance of the major shifts occurring in the global landscape
of development, this stream examines challenges and actual experiences
in the evaluation of the multiple dimensions of development. Four of
these multiple dimensions have been identified for focus. They include:
- Evaluating the impact of developed country policies on developing
countries – An important dimension of globalization is characterized
by domestic policies of developed countries that affect the fortunes
of developing countries. This paper will examine the forms of
evaluation that account for the impact of these policies on
development, generally, and specifically on developing countries,
using case studies.
- Evaluating the Rights Dimensions of – focusing on the critical
dimensions of development as human and peoples rights, this paper will
examine approaches for a rights-based approach to the evaluation of
development. It will examine the tools, systems and prevailing best
practices in the evaluation of development from a rights-based
perspective.
- Evaluating the environmental sustainability dimensions of
development – this paper will explore the approaches, issues and
challenges of making environmental sustainability the cornerstone of
sustainable development evaluation. It will also depict the shifts in
concepts and practices of evaluating for sustainable development.
- Security and Conflict: Implications for Evaluation – this paper
will explore how we cope with the challenges of evaluating conflicts,
dysfunctional state systems, human security.
Stream II: Developing
Evaluation
The future of development evaluation hinges on global, national and
sub-national trends highlighting new evaluation policy directions,
functions, forms and constituencies. This stream will examine the future
architecture of development evaluation, and how these might be developed
and enhanced. It will also discuss whether and how aid evaluation can be
reformed to become more responsive to the emerging global, national and
local dynamics of sustainable development. Four main topics will be the
focus of papers during this stream:
- Global trends in development evaluation – in response to the
changing paradigms of development practices and global policies.
- Country-driven and country owned capacities in development
evaluation – including an exploration of the organizations, systems,
capacities that are presiding over developing country systems for
evaluating development, including recent experiences in the evaluation
of PRSPs, MDGs, Environmental initiatives, in the context of broad
country strategies
- Local and citizen dynamics in the evaluation of development –
emphasizing capacities for community participation, human rights,
equity issues, and how tools are being developed for scaling up local
and citizen engagement in the pursuit of national and global
evaluation efforts.
- Aid Evaluation and its future – stressing on the key processes
being adopted by coalitions of multi-lateral agencies to reform the
aid evaluation landscape, and how principles developed to guide these
are being implemented.
Stream III:
Governance of Evaluation
This stream will examine the institutional arrangements, participants
and stakeholders that promote accountability in development through the
use of evaluation, as well as correcting asymmetries in the conduct and
governance of evaluation. Four main topics have been identified to focus
discussion on the governance of evaluation:
- Government & State Accountability, including a thorough discussion
of the emerging influence and capacities for developing country
Parliaments and civil society to demand and enforce accountability.
This paper will also address systems for budget oversight and public
expenditure management and evaluation in developing countries
- Corporate social responsibility, focusing on new regimes such as
the global reporting initiatives, score cards adopted within corporate
assessment systems. Possible case studies on how these have been
applied to environmental reporting and other forms of accountability
may form part of this paper.
- Civil Society and accountability, including a discussion of
accountability mechanisms being developed and enforced by civil
society, as well as tools and mechanisms for civic engagement in
accountability processes.
- Towards a New Evaluation Architecture – this paper will focus on
the approaches being adopted to create symmetries and partnerships in
evaluation, including capacity development initiatives and proposals
that move beyond aid.
Post-conference Partnership & Skill-Building Workshops
Post-conference partnership and skill-building workshops will be offered
to provide an opportunity for participants (a) to engage in strategies
for strengthening results-oriented evaluation partnerships and (b)
acquire new knowledge, hands-on experience and awareness of innovative
tools, methods and approaches designed to address development evaluation
challenges.
Partnership Workshops
As a means of carrying forward the agenda for re-shaping the
commissioning and conduct of the evaluation of development, IDEAS is
facilitating a series of partnership sessions to develop an agenda and
action for the future. Four partnership meetings are planned. These
include:
Workshop 1:
DAC Quality Standards for Evaluation of Development (involving a
discussion between DAC members, bilateral agencies, UNEG, civil society,
developing country Evaluation Organizations
Workshop 2:
Parliamentary Partnership for Evaluation and Oversight: Following a
symposium of Parliamentary leaders from 10 countries in Africa and South
East Asia (convened by IDEAS and the Canadian Parliamentary Centre,
October 2004), this partnership session will now bring together key
Parliamentary leaders from Asia, Africa, Latin America to engage among
themselves and selected donor agencies interested in establishing an
agenda to support the strengthening of Parliament’s role in evaluating
development and providing oversight and accountability for development
policies and programs.
For each of the listed “Partnership Sessions” IDEAS is soliciting
concrete proposals for undertaking action-oriented and capacity building
towards partnership, or consolidating existing relationships through
collaborative actions. Members of international development and
evaluation community will be encouraged to bring forward ideas for these
partnership meetings.
Skill-building Workshops
The skill-building workshops will be led by renowned resource persons.
Indicative topics have been identified. An open process will be used to
select additional topics from practitioners who desire to carry out such
training sessions. The confirmed sessions are:
Workshop 3:
Designing and Building Performance-Based Monitoring and Evaluation
Systems: A Tool for Managing Programmes and Policies (Ray Rist, World
Bank-OED) – confirmed
Workshop 4:
Evaluating Organizational Performance (Nancy MacPherson – proposed)
Workshop 5:
Participatory Techniques & Civic Engagement in Monitoring & Evaluation
(Rajesh Tandon, PRIA, India & Ted Jackson, Carleton University Centre
for Community Innovations, Ottawa, Canada) confirmed
Workshop 6:
Evaluation from a Rights-based Approach (proposed not yet confirmed)
Workshop 7:
Evaluating Public-Private Partnerships (Mary Cole, IDEAS – proposed)
Evaluation Market Place
The Evaluation Market Place will be a space where a limited number of
development and evaluation organizations will illustrate new and
innovative approaches to development evaluation through poster displays,
video, drama, and other interactive methods. Proposals for the Market
place will be solicited and screened according to transparent criteria
that supports the aims of the Conference (innovation, promoting the
shifts in thinking and practice, rather than conventional evaluation
practices.)
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Management
of the Conference |
Steering Committee
A Steering Committee has been set up to provide conceptual guidance to
the delivery of the Conference, and to oversee the coordination and
operational aspects of the delivery of the Conference including the
three streams comprising 12 paper panels, Workshops, Market Place and
Partnership Meetings.
This Steering Committee consists of:
- A. K. Shiva Kumar, IDEAS Board Member and Conference Convener –
Chair of the Committee.
- Sulley Gariba, President of IDEAS (and serving as convener for
Stream III)
- Nancy MacPherson, IDEAS Board member (and serving as convener for
Stream I)
- Roger Slade, IDEAS Board member (and managing conference finances)
Three senior evaluation professionals are actively supporting the
Steering Committee:
- Bob Picciotto IDEAS Adviser
- Marta Foresti, IDEAS Adviser
- Osvaldo Feinstein, Evaluation Professional (and serving as
convener for Stream II)
Each Steering Committee member will have a specific brief for
oversight of a functional area of the Conference in addition to
providing input to the overall Conference planning.
Stream Coordinators
Each stream has a Stream Coordinator responsible for setting up the
overall design of the stream to ensure coherence with the overall focus
of the Conference, including finding appropriate speakers and overseeing
the preparation of papers and presentations. The Stream Coordinator will
ensure that the stream contents are coherent and reinforce the paradigm
shifts being advocated in re-thinking, reforming and reshaping
development evaluation, and that innovative concepts, methods and
approaches are presented based on empirical relevance in the field of
developing evaluation
Conference Coordinator
A Conference Coordinator, Ms. Prabeen Singh, has been engaged by IDEAS
to serve as the overall coordinator of all major logistics and program
requirements at the Conference site in India.
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Conference Participants and Registration |
Participants at the Conference will be leading evaluation and
development thinkers, social scientists, evaluation practitioners,
policy analysts, decision makers, and students of development evaluation
from governments, voluntary and civil society organizations, the private
sector and international development assistance agencies. A total of 300
participants are expected to participate in main, two-day Conference
(April 12-13, 2005). An estimated 120-150 participants are expected to
participate in the post-conference partnership and skill-building
workshops on day three (April 14, 2005).
Participants wishing to Contribute Papers or role in Sessions
The Conference has developed a set of themes and invited presenters to
develop short presentations for the sessions. Fuller-version papers will
be developed for publication after the Conference.
Evaluation specialists and practitioners who wish to present papers and
skill-building workshops directly related to the themes identified for
the Conference are encouraged to make submissions to this effect, by
using Form #1 available on the Conference website. Outstanding
submissions may be incorporated in a revised Conference Program, posted
on the IDEAS website as part of a dialogue on the Conference themes,
and/or published as part of the Conference proceedings. Please note that
there is no guarantee that submissions made through this process will be
accepted for inclusion in the program. Such submissions are also not a
guarantee for an award of a bursary to attend the Conference.
Registration
Participation in this Conference is open to both members and non-members
of IDEAS.
- For IDEAS members the cost of participation in the 2-day
Conference is US$200
- For non-members of IDEAS the cost of participating in the 2-day
Conference is US$300
- Participants from India who are Indian nationals will pay a
discounted fee of Indian Rs 2,500 for the 2-day event (could qualify
for bursary)
- The fee for participating in any one of the post-conference
skill-building workshops for all categories of participants is $100
per participant. In the case of the partnership workshops, the
sponsors of such workshops will prescribe their participation
criteria, which may not include a participation fee (but could be
based on pre-selected invited participants).
Bursaries
A limited number of bursaries to sponsor the participation of persons
from developing countries and economies in transition will be
administered by IDEAS. These bursaries are open to members of IDEAS
only, and selection of successful candidates is based on the submission
of a proposal that addresses selected themes of Conference. If you wish
to be considered for one of these bursaries, please refer to Form #1:
Bursary Application for details of how to submit your proposal.
Other Types of Sponsorship
A number of IDEAS partners, development agencies, NGOs, private sector
organizations and governments may wish to sponsor candidates to
participate in this Conference. Candidates may be sponsored through a
number of ways:
- Sponsorship of participants through IDEAS: A typical Conference
package costs US$4,500. Sponsors choosing this approach should simply
state how many participants they wish to sponsor and commit to provide
the budget to cover such sponsorship. IDEAS could administer the
selection of such participants or simply accept the nomination of the
funding agency of the sponsorship.
- Direct sponsorship of the participant by the Sponsoring
Organization: Provide funds to the participant or register them
directly for the Conference, arranging their travel and related
accommodation in India.
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1 -
First, forty evaluators and development professionals met in
London on May 8th 2001 and issued the London Declaration outlining a
vision of IDEAS. Second, over a hundred participants debated and adopted
a constitution and elected a Board of Directors at the first Constituent
Assembly in Beijing on September 8th 2002.
2 - From a paper by Robert Picciotto
on the phenomena of globalisation, partnership and policy coherence have
emerged to become major drivers of sustainable development during the
symposium on “Rethinking, Reforming and Reshaping Development
Evaluation” organized by IDEAS, Geneva, July 2004.
3 - IDEAS Symposium, Rethinking
Development Evaluation, Gland, Switzerland. |
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