Abstract
New guide: Sustainable Development Goals and national priorities
On 4 February 2020, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland and EVALSDGs have launched the new guidebook Evaluation to Connect the SDGs With National Priorities: A Guide for Evaluation Commissioners and Managers.
The guide was inspired by a workshop attended by 33 government representatives and evaluation specialists from 24 countries. Hosted in Helsinki in March 2019, the event was jointly organized by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, EVALSDGs, IIED and UNICEF.
The 2030 Agenda and the follow-up and review process have clear guidelines for reporting, but the workshop revealed that countries are still not clear on how to conduct evaluations in a country-led process. The four organizations decided to meet this need together, collaborating on a guide to country-led Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) evaluation.
With SDG evaluation in its infancy, this resource is necessarily provisional. But time is of the essence. Local and national evaluators need support now if they are to use SDG evaluation as an opportunity to improve policies and programmes closer to home, applying tailored approaches. Here, the guide will provide this support and motivate evaluation that embodies the principles of Agenda 2030. The launch of the guide will trigger more countries to use country-led evaluations.
You can download the Guidebook from IIED’s website: https://pubs.iied.org/17739IIED/
Evidence for policy makers – The Hague, The Netherlands, 1–2 July 2020
An international workshop sponsored by Science Works, the University of Leiden and various Dutch government Ministries to discuss topics such as Standards for Evidence; How Evidence Is Organized for Governments; Assessing the Effectiveness of Policy Interventions; Data and Algorithms; and Applying Evidence to Policy. See https://www.scienceworks.nl/nl/activiteiten/befbp.html
European Evaluation Society board member elections
Following elections conducted in November 2019, three new Members were elected to the European Evaluation Society (EES) Board: Alena Lappo, Estelle Raimondo and Oto Potluka. In addition, Tom Ling was elected as the new EES Vice-President.