EvalVoices

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📌 Session 5: Evaluating for Democracy across Policy and Practice

🗣 Speaker: Peter van der Knaap, director of IOB, the independent Directorate of International Research & Policy Evaluation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and President of the European Evaluation Society

📅 Date and Time: 15 July 2026 | 14:00 CET

About the topic: In this EvalVoices webinar titled Evaluating for Democracy across Policy and Practice, Peter van der Knaap will explore the foundational relationship between evaluation and democratic governance. Building on his years of work, and influential essay 'Evaluation without democracy: learning for what, accountable to whom?', Peter will discuss why democratic values such as accountability, voice, representation, and participation should be central to evaluation systems and practice. He will examine how evaluation can contribute to deeper learning, enhance accountability to citizens, and strengthen democratic decision-making across policy contexts and why this matters. This session will invite participants to reflect on the purpose and use of evaluation in democratic societies and engage in dialogue about how evaluation practice can support democratic values in both theory and practice.

About the Speaker: Peter van der Knaap, PhD, is director of IOB, the Independent Evaluation Directorate of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and president of the European Evaluation Society. He is a respected voice in the evaluation field, known for his contributions to evaluation theory and practice, including critical reflections on the relationship between evaluation, learning, accountability, and democratic governance. His books and articles bridges academic perspectives and practical evaluation systems, advancing how evaluators think about purpose, use, and values in evaluation.

🔔 Registration is open now! Follow or Bookmark EvalVoices' to ensure you receive notification once the registrations are opened.

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📌 Session 6: Evaluating Relevance in a Changing World: Lessons from Applying the Revised OECD DAC Criterion in German Development Evaluation

🗣 Speaker: Martin Noltze 

📅 Date and Time: 30 September 2026 | 14:00 CET

About the topic: Relevance is one of the core OECD DAC evaluation criteria, but also one of the most conceptually and methodologically challenging to apply in practice. In a changing policy and development landscape, questions of relevance go beyond whether an intervention aligns with needs and priorities at a given moment. They require evaluators to consider whose needs matter, how priorities evolve over time, and how interventions remain appropriate in contexts shaped by uncertainty, crisis, institutional change, and shifting policy agendas. 

This EvalVoices session will explore how the Relevance criterion is understood and applied in evaluation practice. Drawing on recent experiences from German development evaluation, the session will reflect on conceptual and methodological lessons from both project-level and strategic evaluations. It will invite EU colleagues, evaluation commissioners, and practitioners from the wider evaluation community to consider how relevance can be assessed in a thoughtful, credible, and context-sensitive way. 

The session will offer practical reflections on how evaluators can move beyond a narrow or static understanding of relevance and instead examine the criterion as a dynamic lens for understanding the fit between interventions, stakeholder needs, policy priorities, and changing contexts. It will be of particular interest to those commissioning, managing, or conducting evaluations in international cooperation and public policy settings.

About the Speaker: Martin Noltze is a senior evaluator and team manager at the Competence Center for Methods at the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval). With 20 years of experience in evaluating international development cooperation, Martin works on the advancement of evaluation methods, standards, and criteria. At DEval, he is responsible for thematic evaluations in the areas of climate, environment, and sustainability. His methodological focus includes meta-evaluations and evidence syntheses, rigorous impact evaluations, and theory-based evaluation. 

🔔 Registration is open now! Follow or Bookmark EvalVoices' to ensure you receive notification once the registrations are opened.

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📌 Session 4: Evaluating Efficiency and Effectiveness - why and how? 

🗣 Speaker: Megan Kennedy-Chouane, Head of Evaluation Unit, OECD, Paris

📅 Date and Time: 28 April 2026 | 14:00 CET

About the Topic: In this session, Megan will explore:

✅ What it really means to evaluate efficiency and effectiveness in development interventions, 

✅ Why these dimensions matter for credibility and learning, and 

✅ How practitioners can approach them in a practical, methodologically sound way. 

Drawing on her OECD DAC experience, she will discuss common challenges, useful tools, and emerging good practices, offering participants concrete insights to strengthen the quality and usability of their evaluations.

🔔 Registration is opened now! Sign up for updates on EvalVoices' sessions to secure your spot.

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📌 Topic: Outcome Harvesting & the Emerging Intersections with AI

🗣 Speaker: Goele Scheers

📅 Date and Time: 03 February 2026 | 14:00 CET

About the Topic: The third session in EvalVoices webinar series will explore how Outcome Harvesting as an evaluation method helps us capture and understand change in complex environments—and how Artificial Intelligence is beginning to transform this practice.

This interactive webinar will:

✅ Unpack the core ideas of Outcome Harvesting as a method for identifying and interpreting outcomes.

✅ Reflect on the opportunities and risks AI brings to evaluation, learning, and decision-making.

✅ Create space for dialogue on how practitioners and policymakers can harness these intersections to advance adaptive and evidence-based action.

🔍 Interested in this session outcomes? 👉 Check them out: Session 3: Outcome Harvesting and its Emerging Intersections with AI with Goele Scheers | Capacity4dev

About the Speaker: Goele Scheers is an internationally recognised evaluation, and learning expert with over 20 years of experience supporting organisations and networks worldwide. Goele is a leading global practitioner of the Outcome Harvesting approach, supporting organisations across sectors to evaluate complex change processes, train teams, and design adaptive monitoring systems. Known for her practical, hands-on style and deep commitment to learning, Goele brings a unique blend of methodological rigour and contextual sensitivity to her work. Her evaluation methodological expertise makes her a trusted guide for those navigating uncertainty, complexity, and systems change through Outcome Harvesting.

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📌 Topic: Process Tracing

🗣 Speaker: Derek Beach

📅 Date and Time: 30 September 2025 | 14:00 CET

About the Topic: Process tracing is a qualitative research method used to identify and test causal mechanisms in complex contexts. It enables evaluators to go beyond “what works” by systematically examining how and why interventions produce outcomes. In this session, Derek Beach will demonstrate how process tracing can be applied in evaluations to strengthen the credibility of findings and enhance understanding of causal pathways. Participants will gain practical insights into designing and conducting evaluations that are both methodologically sound and contextually grounded.

🔍 Interested in this session outcomes? 👉 Check them out: Session 2: Process Tracing with Derek Beach | Capacity4dev

For more information on Process Tracing, see:

1. The World Bank, 2025, Process Tracing Methods in Program Evaluation
2. Evaluation (2025), ‘Working with interviews in Process Tracing evaluation methods.’
3. Evaluation (2023), ‘Theorizing how interventions work in evaluation: Process-tracing methods and theorizing process theories of change’.

About the Speaker: Derek Beach is a professor of Political Science at Aarhus University, Denmark, where he teaches and research on process tracing methods and European integration. He has authored articles, chapters, and books on research methodology, policy evaluation, international negotiations, referendums, and European integration, and co-authored the book Process-tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines (2019, 2nd edition, University of Michigan Press). He has taught process tracing methods at numerous workshops for both academics and evaluation practitioners, as well as led Ph.D.-level methods courses throughout the world. Beach has conducted evaluations at the national and international level. He was an academic fellow at the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group in spring 2022. He is an academic coordinator of the Methods Excellence Network (MethodsNet).

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Topic: Evaluation Science

Speaker: Michael Quinn Patton

Date and Time: 15 July 2025 | 14:00 CET

About the Topic: Evaluation Science addresses the evolving body of knowledge that underpins effective and credible evaluation practice. In this session, Michael Quinn Patton will explore the foundations of evaluation as a scientific discipline—what constitutes quality evidence, how methodological choices influence use, and why evaluation must adapt to complexity, uncertainty, and systems change.

Participants delved into how evaluation science informs the credibility, utility, and influence of evaluations in real-world settings. The session covered key themes such as principles-based evaluation, adaptive methods, and the nexus between evidence and decision-making. Drawing on decades of global experience, Patton offered thought-provoking reflections and forward-looking insights, making this an unmissable session for anyone working to advance evaluation culture and practice.

🔍 Interested in this session outcomes? 👉 Check them out: Session 1: Evaluation Science with Michael Quinn Patton!

For more information on Evaluation Science, see:

1. American Journal of Evaluation, (2018). Evaluation Science
2. YouTube video on Evaluation options: https://youtu.be/lDaYIuT4M14

About the Speaker: Michael Quinn Patton is a globally recognised leader in the field of evaluation. He is the founder and director of Utilization-Focused Evaluation, a paradigm that emphasises designing evaluations that are actually used by decision-makers. With over five decades of experience, Patton has conducted evaluations at local, national, and international levels across diverse sectors including education, health, environment, and development cooperation. He has served as President of the American Evaluation Association and is a founding board member of the International Evaluation Academy.

Patton is the author of numerous seminal books and articles, including Utilization-Focused Evaluation (2008), Developmental Evaluation (2010), and Blue Marble Evaluation (2020), which proposes a new approach to evaluating global systems transformation. His contributions have fundamentally shaped evaluation practice worldwide, earning him multiple prestigious awards, including the Lazarsfeld Award for Lifetime Contributions to Evaluation Theory.

You can access some of his work via the following websites: 

• Utilization-Focused Evaluation website
• Blue Marble Evaluation overview