Le mercredi 13 mai, 11 h (heure de l'Est)
Titre : Use, Influence and Polycrisis
Résumé : "As environmental change accelerates and policy challenges become increasingly interconnected, evaluation must evolve to remain credible, relevant, and influential. This workshop examines how evaluation at the Global Environment Facility has contributed to decision-making within the human–environment nexus by strengthening independence, adopting systems thinking, advancing methodological approaches, and ensuring timely insights.
The workshop will focus on the use and influence of evaluation, exploring how innovative and evolving approaches can enhance the relevance, rigor, and uptake of evaluation findings. Particular emphasis will be placed on the need for evaluation to be adaptive, enabling evaluators to respond to changing conditions, emerging knowledge, and evolving program contexts while providing timely insights for decision-making.
Systems thinking offers essential tools for understanding the complex relationships, feedback loops, and cross-sector interactions that shape outcomes across social and environmental systems. Independence remains central to the credibility and legitimacy of evaluation, enabling evaluators to provide trusted and transparent evidence while engaging constructively with policy and program stakeholders. The forms and necessary attributes of independence that enable addressing coupled human and natural systems will be a point of discussion in the workshop.
Drawing on evidence and experience from current evaluation units in multilateral institutions, the session will also reflect on the responsibility of evaluation and evaluators—especially in times of polycrisis, scarce financing and heightened accountability—to provide credible, independent, and timely evidence that supports learning, informs policy choices, and guides the effective use of limited resources.
Workshop participant successes in influencing interventions will be solicited and celebrated.
Présentation : Geeta Batra, Andy Rowe (moderator)
Type : Atelier express (90 min)
Langue : English
Expertise : Geeta Batra has been the Director of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) since 2024. She brings over 25 years of experience in international development and 15 years specifically in program evaluation to the role.
Her career includes significant tenures at the World Bank Group. She spent seven years (1998-2005) in the private sector development department working on competitiveness projects, followed by roles at the Independent Evaluation Group and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), where she served as head and chief evaluator for advisory services.
Prior to joining the GEF in 2015 as Chief Evaluator and Deputy Director, she also worked at American Express as a senior risk manager. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics and an M.B.A. in Finance. In her current role, she leads a team of evaluators, oversees evaluation quality, and has co-authored numerous publications while managing over 100 evaluations."
Niveau : Intermediate/Advanced
Prérequis : Awareness and some experience undertaking evaluations and communicating findings. Experience with international development not required.
Objectifs : Participants will be introduced to key contributors to the high level of influence achieved by the Independent Evaluation Office at the Global Environment Facility, including how their evaluations shifted from a strong environmental focus to include human system outcomes, and contributed to similar shifts at the GEF.
Stratégies : Facilitated discussions engaging success stories from participants and reflecting on the centrality of use and influence of evaluation in times of polycrisis.