[This blog post was written by Ricardo Ramirez & Dal Brodhead, Principal Investigators of the project Designing Evaluation and Communication for Impact (DECI)] In this posting we share our practical experience in capacity development in the fields of evaluation and communication.  We have been mentoring projects to produce evaluation and communication strategies together. Our partners have been research projects globally, all of which aim to influence national policies in the

[Editor’s note: This post was written by Zenda Ofir, South African scientist, independent international evaluator, and knowledge management specialist. The piece was originally published at Zenda’s new blog Evaluation for Development, which P&I strongly recommends.] I have come to the conclusion that nearly everything in life is influenced by power. Yet we almost never evaluate for it. It is difficult to be powerless and happy. The type and extent of the power we want will di

I have been using the logical framework approach for many years to help organisations with designing their projects or monitoring and evaluation systems.  I do believe that the analytical steps are very powerful; the logframe process has two stages – the analytical stage (stakeholder analysis, problem analysis, objectives analysis and alternatives analysis) and then the design stage where you actually build your results chain, and identify your assumptions, indicators and mea

In May 2015, as part of INASP’s strategy development process, we engaged an independent consultant to conduct a phone/skype survey of 39 stakeholders from 26 countries who represent different parts of the research and development system. In her previous blog post, Sue Corbett shared some of the positive messages that emerged from the survey about the progress of research in the south. In today’s blog she looks at the persistence of “old problems” and complex challenges. As di

In May 2015, as part of INASP’s strategy development process, we engaged an independent consultant, Teresa Hanley, to conduct a phone/Skype survey of 39 stakeholders from 26 countries who represent different parts of the research and development system. Survey respondents included researchers, research and programme managers, senior university personnel, librarians, journal editors, capacity builders and donors. They work in universities, government departments, NGOs, think t

[Editor’s note: This post was written by Rezarta Delibashzade, Project management/Researcher at the Democracy for Development Institute (D4D)  from Kosovo. It is part of a series of reflections from participants and facilitators of the Online training to strengthen Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning on policy influence, supported by the Think Tank Fund and the Think Tank Initiative.] I am Rezarta Delibashzade and I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend “ Online

[Editor’s note: This post was written by Dena Lomofsky from of Southern Hemisphere. It emerges from reflection from P&I´s online course on Monitoring, evaluating and learning on policy influence, supported by the Think Tank Fund and the Think Tank Initiative.] Thinking small needs thinking big first. When designing how to monitor and evaluate it is best to start with the big picture and understand the intervention in its full complexity, and then narrow it down to fit the com

[Editor’s note: This post was written by Paul R. Kelly, PhD Researcher in Impact, Evaluation & Service Design, Lancaster University, UK. Email: paulrichardkelly@gmail.com.] Introduction Welcome attention is now being paid to how evaluations can better engage with and contribute to policy processes, beyond dissemination alone. One example of this trend is CIPPEC’s work on influencing public policy assessments (2015). To add to this kind of work, I would also like pose some qu

[Editor’s note: This post was written by Dena Lomofsky from of Southern Hemisphere. It emerges from reflection from P&I´s online course on Monitoring, evaluating and learning on policy influence, supported by the Think Tank Fund and the Think Tank Initiative.] While conducting the on-line course for Politics & Ideas on monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL onwards) for policy influence, we facilitated a brainstorming session about what think tanks already have in place to

[Editor’s note: This post was written by Zoryana Kozak, co-founder and Senior Policy Expert of the Resource & Analysis Centre “Society and Environment”, Ukraine. It  is part of a series of reflections from participants and facilitators of the Online training to strengthen M&E&L on policy influence in Central and Eastern Europe, supported by the Think Tank Fund.] I would like to say few words and share my experience of participation in the “Online training to strengthen Monito

South Africa has had a policy unit in the Presidency for some time, which since the mid-2000s also focused on M&E. This was reinforced in 2009 with a new administration focusing on using M&E to improve services. In parallel a project called the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD) was working with the Presidency and other stakeholders around evidence-based policy making. This work pointed to a problem around supply (for example that researchers do not unde

One of the key indicators of policy influence is ‘framing debates’ (Jones and Villar, 2008) and there is no doubt that the narratives around whether and how development policy makes use of evidence have shifted enormously in the last five years. Take, for example, the phrase ‘evidence-based policy’. It has all but disappeared, in favour of ‘evidence-informed policy’ (EIPM).  One reason for the shift in terminology is in recognition of the fact that evidence is often most appr

Implementing an M&E system – a postcard from the trenches ‘Seriously?! As if we don’t have enough work already! Besides, we’re researchers, not bureaucrats’. As jarring as it is to the ear of a monitoring and evaluation specialist, this reaction is not uncommon in think tank corridors upon introduction of an M&E system. So what stands a believer to do? Well, though I certainly don’t have the answer, I could offer a glimpse into one programme’s M&E (mis)adventures. If you and

[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared at On Think Tanks. It is part of a series of posts reflecting on a long term mentoring project with ASIES from Guatemala and Grupo Faro from Ecuador.] When donors think of M&E they tend to think of demonstrating influence; but when think tanks think of M&E their first concern is how this may help them improve their own internal management. Monitoring and evaluation for management ought to be the first concern of donors, but it isn

[Editor’s note: This post is the second of a series of posts focused on the nitty-gritty of designing and implementing M&E systems by sharing on the ground learning and experience. This series is produced by Dena Lomofsky of Southern Hemisphere. The first post can be read here] Over the past few years I have become increasingly concerned about the implementation of M&E frameworks and plans that we help our clients develop, often NGOs or Think Tanks. Why do organisations strug

[Editor’s note: This post is the first of a series of posts focused on the nitty-gritty of designing and implementing M&E systems by sharing on the ground learning and experience. This series is produced by Dena Lomofsky of Southern Hemisphere] Implementing M&E systems is an organisation wide effort that requires rethinking organisational structure and culture.  At Southern Hemisphere we have developed a participatory process to design the M&E system.  A participatory process

By kat m research at flickr.com under CC license Catherine Fisher´s post on our Lessons learned paper as well as Antonio Capillo´s points regarding M&E of capacity building activities have made me reflect more deeply on how we can better grapple the way we “measure” what we achieve through capacity building in terms of strengthening the link between research and policy. As Catherine rightly highlighted in our paper we can say very little about how the Spaces for Engagement pr

At Spaces for Engagement, our M&E approach was linked to the way the programme was developed: since we presented yearly plans on activities to be conducted, we mainly annually measured success by evaluating impact of each planned CB activity. However, after reading Antonio Capillo´s reflection in his previous post on this topic, I believe we could have begun every year by designing an approximate theory underpinning the expected change or impact over time, as short as this wa

This post is about a mentoring approach to capacity development in the field of evaluation, more specifically using Utilization-focused Evaluation (UFE). What we detail here is noteworthy in that the funder (Canada’s IDRC) has allowed its partners the leeway to design their own evaluations without prescribing the purposes or methods. Our experience contrasts with issues raised by Goran Buldioski blog of Nov. 11th (in this series) where he ponders about the benefits of Think T

[Editor’s Note: This post was written by Natalia Aquilino, Director of the influence, Monitoring and Evaluation Programme at CIPPEC, with Leandro Echt’s collaboration.] Consensus regarding evaluation relevance as a transparency and accountability strategy is rising for Latin American think tanks. Evaluation initiatives are being triggered by programmes with strong regional presence such as the Think Tank Initiative as well as by a legitimate bottom-up need from the TTs themse