Event: Integrating communications in evaluation – 11h00 – 30 January 2020 ILO, Geneva
For those in Geneva region and interested in communications and evaluation – I will be making a presentation in January 2020, read more:
The Evaluation Office of the International Labour Organization invites you to a presentation by Glenn O’Neil
. The topic of Dr O’Neil’s presentation will be Integrating communications in evaluation.
Communications is an important aspect of evaluation; it has been said that without communications, evaluation would not be possible.
Evaluation commissioners and evaluators are already communicating – but is communications being used optimally to support the evaluation process? In this presentation, Dr O’Neil will challenge the assumptions of how communications “works” for evaluations and propose solutions based on his experience as both a communicator and evaluator, backed up by communication practice and theory.
Dr O’Neil is founder of Owl RE, evaluation and research consultancy, Geneva. Since 15 years, he has led over 100 evaluations and reviews for some 40 organizations, including UN agencies, NGOs, foundations and governments. Dr O’Neil was previously a professional communicator in the non-profit sector and has produced his own guide on Integrating Communications in the Evaluation Process (pdf).
The event will take place from 11:00-12:00 on Thursday 30 January in the ILO Library on R2 (main floor). After the presentation, there will be a networking lunch (at your own expense) in the ILO cafeteria.
No need to register – please come to the ILO reception at 10:50 and ask for Craig Russon of the ILO Evaluation Office.
New and better evaluation criteria
The OECD/DAC evaluation criteria – the main guidance used for most evaluations has been revised. Following a broad consultation, the revised criteria have been published (pdf).
The main changes are the addition of a new criterion: Coherence; a better explanation of how to use the criteria; and a recognition that the criteria are used across many sectors and not only for the development sector. The explanatory document (pdf) is well worth a read.
Communication evaluation measurement month
November is communication evaluation measurement month! AMEC – the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication and its members and partners are hosting many events – online and in-person globally – check out the calendar >> 
A Guide: Integrating Communication in Evaluation
I’ve put together this guide for anyone who wants to learn how communication can more effectively support evaluation: evaluation consultants, communication consultants, evaluation commissioners and programme/project staff participating in evaluations.
1 day workshop in Bern: The politics of evaluation; 2 November 2019
Join a 1 day workshop in Bern, Switzerland on the Politics of Evaluation taught by Dr. Marlène Läubli Loud.
The course will look at why and how evaluation is in itself a political activity and consequently, how the «political» interests of the various partners involved can play an important part in influencing the evaluation process. We will look at aspects of political influence and practice how those can be managed to avoid conflicts of interest and minimise risks.
New resource: No Royal Road: Finding and Following the Natural Pathways in Advocacy Evaluation
Jim Coe and Rhonda Schlangen have published a very interesting publication on advocacy evaluation.
The highlight six factors that they believe should change for monitoring and evaluation of advocacy:
1. Better factor in uncertainty.
2. Plan for unpredictability.
3. Redefine contribution as combinational and dispositional.
4. Parse outcomes and their significance.
5. Break down barriers to engaging advocates in monitoring and evaluation.
6. Think differently about how we evaluate more transformational advocacy.
Sketches from communication evaluation summit
If you missed the AMEC Summit on communication evaluation in May 2019 as I did, there are some great summary sketches of the main sessions by Redanredan. See an example below; well worth to check out:
A framework for context analysis
Here is an interesting tool to help with context analysis: ‘Context Matters’ framework – to support evidence-informed policy making. The tool is interactive and you can view the different elements from various perspectives. Designed to support the use of knowledge in policy-making, it could also be of interest to researchers and evaluators as an analytical tool for contexts.
View the interactive framework here>>
Read more about the framework here>>
Thanks to Better Evaluation for introducing this new resource to me.
Using infographics to present evaluation findings
I’ve written previously about using infographics to summarise evaluation findings; here is another recent example of where my evaluation team used an infographic to present the findings of an evaluation – it’s only a partial view – you can see the complete infographic on page 5 of this report (pdf).
New e-learning course: Real-time evaluation and adaptive management
My friends at TRAASS have launched a new e-learning course on Real-time evaluation and adaptive management:
“What exactly is an RTE/AM approach and how can it help in unstable or conflict affected situations? Do M&E practitioners need to ditch their standard approaches in jumping on this latest bandwagon? What can you do if there is no counterfactual or dataset? This modular course covers these challenges and more.”
