Previous co-chairs

Since the birth of EvalPartners in 2012, a family of committed leaders drove forward the EvalVision. EvalPartners is grateful to the following leaders who pioneered global evaluation since the founding of EvalPartners.

Marco Segone
Soma De Silva
Natalia Kosheleva
Ziad Moussa
Colin Kirk
Adeline Sibanda
Andrea Cook
Silvia Salinas

Some co-chairs share their #EvalHighlights below:

Natalia Kosheleva

How would you capture the essence of EvalPartners in a few words or phrases?
For me EvalPartners is about “Evaluators of the world unite!” There are several models of how evaluation professionals, both practicing and aspiring, join forces to address their professional needs. One model is location-based – when evaluation professionals who live in the same area or country establish or join a local, national or regional association. Such location-based evaluation associations are already united globally by the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE). But there are other models of association of evaluation professionals. For example, all evaluation offices of UN agencies have joined forces through UN Evaluation Group (UNEG). Evaluation functions of the development agencies are united via EvalNet. There are also thematic evaluation associations like ALNAP that brings together organization and individuals interested to use evaluation to improve responses to humanitarian crises.

While during the 2000s there was a rapid growth in the number of national evaluation associations, in the majority of the countries they are still small and weak – because demand for evaluation is still low and hence only a few people are able to engage in evaluation professionally. As a result, the collective power of these association was small. There were no incentives for stronger groups like UNEG, ALNAP and IDEAs to join IOCE as members. And EvalPartners established in 2012 created a platform where evaluators united through local, national and regional associations could join forces with evaluation professionals working within the development community and united through other types of associations, internal evaluation functions as well as groups of evaluation commissioners, such as the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation (GPFE).

What do you believe is the future role of EvalPartners in driving forward the EvalAgenda?
As an open and inclusive platform EvalPartners create a unique space for global dialogue on the future of the evaluation profession that translates into the EvalAgenda. I believe that the EvalAgenda is very similar in its nature to Agenda2030: it shall set the common vision, but this vision has to be then translated into regional, national and local as well as thematic sectoral priorities and activities. EvalPartners shall also provide a platform where results of these activities and lessons learned in the course of their implementation are shared to foster further dialogue, mutual learning and cooperation.

What were some of the highlights during your tenure as co-chair of EvalPartners?
My term as EvalPartners co-chair in the end of 2012 at the first Global Evaluation Forum in Chiang Mai. The next three years proved the power of EvalPartners to bring people interested in evaluation together to promote evaluation. EvalPartners supported the initiative of a small groups of members of parliament (MPs) from Sri Lanka to promote evaluation to parliamentarians – and soon the regional and national groups of MPs emerged and united through the GPFE. The evaluation community declared 2015 the International Year of Evaluation and organized numerous local, national, regional and global events to celebrate it. The IOCE has established itself as a reputable organizations vis-a-vis a development community and UN system and assumed the role of the EvalPartners Secretariat.

Do you have a special birthday wish for the EvalPartners family?
The Chiang Mai declaration adopted at the first EvalPartners Global Evaluation Forum (GEF) highlighted that its participants were united by a shared commitment to evaluation as an effective instrument for promoting and supporting equitable human development. It also highlighted the professional solidarity and partnership between evaluation professionals and users through various types of Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs). My wish for EvalPartners is to keep carrying and promoting this message of the importance of partnership in the years to come.

Marco Segone

How would you capture the essence of EvalPartners in a few words or phrases?
A global movement to enhance influential evaluation to inform decision-making for an equitable and sustainable world.

What do you believe is the future role of EvalPartners in driving forward the EvalAgenda?
EvalPartners should be the global leader movement for evaluation to inform the world we want.

What were some of the highlights during your tenure as co-chair of EvalPartners?
The foundation of EvalPartners with a vibrant and diverse membership, including EvalYouth, Evalgender and EvalSDGs. The first ever global evaluation forum hosted in a national parliament. Ninety-two events organized worlwide to celebrate 2015 as the International Year of Evalaution. The first-ever United Nations General Assembly Resolution on Evaluation Capacity Development.

Ziad Moussa

How would you capture the essence of EvalPartners in a few words or phrases?
While re-reading “Getting to Maybe: how the world is changed” this summer, I fell on this marvelous quote by Vaclav Havel: “What seemed almost impossible looking forward seems almost inevitable looking back”. Back in 2011, the EvalMovement was working in silos, rarely tapping on the synergies of its different constituencies and EvalChange rested on the shoulders of a few individual champions. EvalPartners provided the impetus, the platform and most importantly a wide-encompassing umbrella to make the impossible in 2011 inevitable in 2021.

What do you believe is the future role of EvalPartners in driving forward the EvalAgenda?
EvalPartners cannot (and should not) achieve the EvalAgenda alone, but should remain a key advocate for its implementation. The EvalAgenda acknowledged in 2015 that “… despite its success and growing acceptance in many parts of the world, evaluation has not yet been embraced as widely as it should be… it is the gap between potential value and current acceptance that motivates us to work harder towards improving evaluation quality and usefulness and spread its benefits worldwide and across all segments of society, including the private and voluntary sectors…” Some things might have changed since 2015, but there is still a long journey ahead.

What were some of the highlights during your tenure as co-chair of EvalPartners?
My tenure as EvalPartners Co-Chair had to stand the challenge of leading it from infancy to adolescence and there are too many (very subjective) highlights to mention along the way! Receiving the EvalTorch in Kathmandu in 2015 from Natalia and Marco, imagining what EvalYouth would be with the late and much regretted Marie Gervais and then seeing it take the EvalPlanet by storm, facilitating the process that led to EvalSDGs and EvalIndigenous are some of these magical moments. The fall of 2017 was also magical as we managed to secure multi-year grants from the Swiss Development Cooperation and US Department of State to put all this machinery in motion.

Colin Kirk

How would you capture the essence of EvalPartners in a few words or phrases?
EvalPartners is dynamic, creative, innovative, engaging and above all welcoming to all involved in development evaluation.

What do you believe is the future role of EvalPartners in driving forward the EvalAgenda?
The world has experienced extraordinary challenges over the past decade and, looking ahead, is likely to experience an even more challenging future. Evaluation helps to make sense of these difficult times and the ways in which we can build a better future for all. EvalPartners, bringing together a wide range of people and institutions, can encourage the best use of evidence in decision making and further strengthen capacity for producing and using robust evaluation evidence. This is especially important when the world is faced by misinformation and by misuse of information. By helping to create stronger evaluation policies and practices, EvalPartners can help in creating and sharing valuable knowledge needed for fostering sustainable human development for all around the globe. Evaluation provides maps to help us navigate our way through these difficult times and to bring people and the planet to safer waters.

What were some of the highlights during your tenure as co-chair of EvalPartners?
I recall meeting with colleagues from the UN and IOCE some ten years ago to discuss plans to bring evaluators together around the world and build the network which became EvalPartners. There were just a few of us, sitting in a small room in the UNICEF office in Accra, Ghana. But the time was right for this initiative, and it has been wonderful to see it bloom. I was therefore delighted to serve as EvalPartners Co-Chair and to welcome colleagues from around the world to our Global Forum held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in 2017. I vividly recall the warm welcome afforded by our hosts in Kyrgyzstan, and the commitment shown by participants to furthering the evaluation agenda in pursuit of the global Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030.