French Government’s statement

In order to access the French Government’s statement about the EvalYear event co-sponsored by EES, France’s evaluation society, UNESCO and the OECD please click on the following link.

Communique on joint UNESCO-OECD-SFE-EES Conference: Making Effective Use of Evaluations in an Increasingly Complex World

On 30 September, UNESCO, the OECD, the French Evaluation Society, and the European Evaluation Society hold a joint conference on the subject of Making Effective Use of Evaluations in an Increasingly Complex World. The event was held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, within the context of the 2015 International Year of Evaluation which aims to promote evaluation and evidence-based policy making at international, regional, national and local levels.

The conference, which attracted a very high level of interest, was attended by approximately 200 participants and was unique in that it brought together a wide range of evaluation stakeholders, from evaluation experts and practitioners to policymakers as users of evaluations.  In providing a setting in which both the demand and the supply sides of evaluation could meet, the conference aimed to improve understanding of why the growth in effective evaluation use lags behind the development of evaluation institutionalization, and to provide an impetus to bridging the gap between demand and supply in light of the challenges faced by policymakers in an increasingly complex world.

Systemic issues, present on both the demand and supply sides, can be seen as the primary roadblocks in ensuring that evaluations are effectively used.  The conference discussed the use of evaluation in this context and its four sessions sought to answer the following questions:

• What is evaluation use?
• What do decision makers expect from evaluations?
• What is the evaluator’s perspective on ensuring the usefulness of evaluations?
• What have we learnt about how the gap between the demand and supply sides of evaluation might be bridged?

The opening addresses of the conference were given by Mr Getachew Enigda (Deputy Director-General of UNESCO), Mr Angel Gurria (Secretary-General of the OECD), Ms Laure de la Bretèche (Secretary General for the modernisation of public action, Government of France), and Mr Marco Segone (Chair of the United Nations Evaluation Group).

An introductory presentation by Mr Elliot Stern (Emeritus Professor at University of Lancaster) provided an overview of the conceptual framework on evaluation use, including examples of the many types of evaluation use. Amongst his main messages was that while it is important to understand that decision-making is necessarily informed by many things, including political imperatives and judgments, efforts to increase the use and usefulness of evaluation contributes over time to organisations being more adaptive, relevant and effective.

The morning session included a panel discussion amongst several decision makers on their individual experiences with evaluation and evaluation use.  The panellists included Ambassador Nick Bridge (Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the OECD), Ambassador Mariam Katagum (Ambassador of Nigeria to UNESCO), Ambassador Annika Markovic (Ambassador of Sweden to the OECD and UNESCO), and Gautier Mignot (Deputy-Director for globalisation, development and partnerships with the Ministry of foreign affairs, French Government). The panellists recognised that even though evaluation is just one stream of evidence available to decision makers, it is an important one. Amongst the issues raised in this session was the importance of targeted and timely evaluations in a context of ever faster-moving policy making, the need for clear messages from evidence-based and credible evaluations, and the benefits of co-developing evaluation recommendations to make them relevant and actionable.

The afternoon session kicked off with perspectives from Nick York (Director of the Independent Evaluation Group’s Country, Corporate and Global Evaluations department, World Bank) and Jacques Toulemonde (independent evaluation expert), two evaluators with a longstanding experience in evaluation. The presentations touched upon the key factors that can make evaluations influential.  Jacques Toulemonde advocated for the need to better define whether the results of evaluations will be used more for accountability purposes or more to support organisational learning, and for evaluators and users alike to better understand the trade-offs and constraints that condition the likelihood of results being used to these ends. Nick York called for evaluators to be more aware of the determinants of evaluation use and influence, including those related to the decision-making and policy-setting environment, and to work towards creating conditions for receptivity of and dialogue with decision makers.

In the final session, a distinguished panel of evaluators –Ms Susanne Frueh (Director of the Internal Oversight Service at UNESCO), Ms Lucy Elliott (Director of Internal Audit and Evaluation at OECD), Mr Pierre Savignat (President of the French Evaluation Society), Ms Claudine Voyadzis (President of the European Evaluation Society) – helped to take stock of the days’ discussions and highlighted what they learned from the presentations with respect to bridging the gap between the demand and supply sides of evaluation.

Joint conference: Making effective use of evaluations in an increasingly complex world

UNESCO – OECD – French Evaluation Society – European Evaluation Society

Date: 30 September 2015 Place: Paris, France The detailed programme is available below.

While evaluation has been embraced worldwide as a modern public governance and management tool, it can be reasonably argued that the trend in effective evaluation use and impact lags significantly behind the development of evaluation institutionalisation and the resulting growth in evaluation activities and outputs. This conference, in bringing together international, regional and national level users and producers of evaluations, aims to improve understanding of why this is the case and to provide an impetus to bridging the gap between evaluation supply and demand that otherwise risks becoming wider, given the challenges faced by policymakers in an increasingly complex world.

Throughout the course of the twentieth century, evaluation became an institutionalised practice in most of the developed world. More recently, the collective endorsement by UN Member States of a results-based international development agenda, as enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals and their targets, the subsequent 2005 Paris Declaration on development effectiveness and later meetings on aid effectiveness, have been important drivers towards the institutionalisation of evaluation in the developing world. Finally, in the last decade or so, many middle-income countries have taken decisive steps to develop evaluation systems within their public administrations.

As a result, evaluation has now become widely present across the globe and more than ever contributes to better decision-making processes and policies for the benefit of society. Yet, despite the growth of the institutionalisation and reach of evaluation, guaranteeing results effectively fulfil their fundamental purposes of ensuring accountability and supporting learning appears to be constrained by a number of systemic issues.

On the supply side, commissioners and evaluators often need to deliver evaluations under severe time and budget constraints. This brings trade-offs between the quality, scope, and depth of evaluations that can have repercussions on their usefulness. At the same time, promising advances in information technologies and ‘big data’ can offer new ways to gather information more efficiently, in particular about target populations and societal changes, yet making use of the opportunities provided by these technological advances remains a challenge.As a result, evaluation has now become widely present across the globe and more than ever contributes to better decision-making processes and policies for the benefit of society. Yet, despite the growth of the institutionalisation and reach of evaluation, guaranteeing results effectively fulfil their fundamental purposes of ensuring accountability and supporting learning appears to be constrained by a number of systemic issues.Throughout the course of the twentieth century, evaluation became an institutionalised practice in most of the developed world. More recently, the collective endorsement by UN Member States of a results-based international development agenda, as enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals and their targets, the subsequent 2005 Paris Declaration on development effectiveness and later meetings on aid effectiveness, have been important drivers towards the institutionalisation of evaluation in the developing world. Finally, in the last decade or so, many middle-income countries have taken decisive steps to develop evaluation systems within their public administrations.

On the demand side, there is a widely recognised need for empirical evidence to support decision-making, and expectations of what evaluations can do are often high. However, evaluation results and recommendations are not always used as fully as they could be to inform policy discussions and support organisational learning alongside the many other sources of decision-making and learning information.

2015 is the International Year of Evaluation. The European and French Evaluation Societies, OECD, and UNESCO have joined hands in organising an event to discuss the use of evaluation within the context of the challenges outlined above. The purpose of the event is to bring together decision makers and evaluators, the demand and the supply sides of evaluation, to discuss the use and impact of evaluation itself and how this could be improved. What is the potential for evaluation as a mechanism for providing a stream of evidence to inform strategic decision-making, for example on major shifts in policy and significant resource reallocations? What are the building blocks of successful evaluation systems in which evaluative outputs are credible and user-ready so as to effectively inform decision-making and organisational learning, and how can evaluations be better used in this context? Decision makers and evaluators may have divergent views on these questions, yet they fundamentally share the same mission, to develop and implement better policies and programmes to the benefit of their constituents and target populations.

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Conférence conjointe: Pour une meilleure utilisation des évaluations dans un monde de plus en plus complexe

UNESCO – OCDE – Société française d’évaluation – Société européenne d’évaluation

Date: 30 Septembre 2015 Lieu: Paris, France

Le programme détaillé et est disponible ci-dessous.

Si l’évaluation est devenue une pratique universellement reconnue de gestion et de gouvernance publique, on peut raisonnablement affirmer que son institutionnalisation et la croissance des activités et résultats qui en ont découlé, n’ont pas été suivis au même rythme d’une utilisation ni donc d’un impact à la hauteur des enjeux. En réunissant des utilisateurs et producteurs d’évaluation au niveau international, régional et national, cette conférence est organisée dans le but d’approfondir la compréhension de cette situation et d’identifier des solutions permettant de réduire l’écart entre l’offre et la demande d’évaluation, qui risque autrement de s’accentuer au vu des défis affrontés par les décideurs publics dans un monde de plus en plus complexe.

Par conséquent, l’évaluation est aujourd’hui largement répandue dans le monde et contribue plus que jamais à améliorer le processus de prise de décision et à mettre les politiques publiques au service de la société. Si l’institutionnalisation de l’évaluation a progressé et son utilisation s’est généralisée, il semblerait que les résultats sont entravés par un ensemble de problème systémiques qui empêchent l’objectif premier de l’évaluation de rendre compte de l’action des décideurs publics et de guider l’apprentissage.Au cours du vingtième siècle, l’évaluation est devenue une pratique institutionnalisée dans la plupart des pays développés. Plus récemment, l’adoption collective par les États membres des Nations Unies d’un programme de développement international fondé sur les résultats, conformément aux objectifs du Millénaire pour le développement, puis la déclaration de Paris sur l’efficacité du développement en 2005 et des conférences ultérieures sur l’efficacité de l’aide, sont des vecteurs  ayant contribué de façon significative à l’institutionnalisation de l’évaluation dans les pays en développement. Enfin, depuis une dizaine d’années, de nombreux pays à revenus intermédiaires ont pris des mesures décisives pour développer des systèmes d’évaluation au sein de leurs administrations publiques.

Du côté de l’offre d’évaluation, les hauts fonctionnaires et les évaluateurs doivent souvent conduire les évaluations dans des délais très courts et avec un budget limité, entrainant des arbitrages entre la qualité, le périmètre, et l’envergure des évaluations, pouvant compromettre leur utilité finale. Par ailleurs, des avancées prometteuses dans le domaine des technologies de l’information et des mégadonnées sont susceptibles d’offrir de nouvelles façons  de recueillir l’information de manière plus efficiente, en particulier sur des populations cibles ou des changements sociétaux. Cependant, tirer parti des opportunités offertes par ces technologies avancées reste encore un défi à relever.

Du côté de la demande, la nécessité de disposer de données probantes pour éclairer la prise de décision est largement reconnue et les attentes envers l’évaluation dans ce contexte sont élevées. Cependant, les résultats et recommandations d’évaluation ne sont pas toujours utilisés autant qu’ils pourraient l’être pour informer le débat politique et nourrir l’apprentissage organisationnel avec les nombreuses autres sources d’information pouvant éclairer la décision publique et l’apprentissage.

2015 est l’année internationale de l’évaluation. À cette occasion, les associations européenne et française d’évaluation, l’OCDE et l’UNESCO se sont associées dans l’organisation d’une conférence consacrée à l’utilisation et l’impact de l’évaluation dans le contexte des défis susmentionnés. Cette conférence a pour objectif de réunir des décideurs et des évaluateurs, qui représentent l’offre et la demande de l’évaluation, afin d’engager une discussion sur l’utilisation et l’impact de l’évaluation elle-même et sur les moyens possibles d’amélioration. Quel est le potentiel de l’évaluation en tant que mécanisme qui met à disposition un ensemble de preuves permettant de nourrir la prise de décision stratégique, notamment sur les grands enjeux de réorientation des politiques publiques et de réallocation des ressources? Quels sont les piliers d’un système d’évaluation efficace au sein duquel les résultats de l’évaluation seraient robustes et prêts à l’emploi pour nourrir de façon efficace la prise de décision et l’apprentissage organisationnel? Enfin, comment les évaluations peuvent-elles être mieux utilisées dans ce contexte? Les responsables de l’élaboration des politiques et les évaluateurs ont potentiellement des avis divergents sur ces questions, néanmoins ils partagent fondamentalement la même mission qui consiste à développer et à mettre en œuvre de meilleures politiques et programmes publics pour leurs citoyens et les populations cibles.

L’inscription à cet événement est obligatoire. Les participants sont cordialement invités à s’enregistrer en cliquant sur le lien suivant. Informations pratiques sur le lieu de la conférence s’il vous plaît télécharger ci-dessous.