The Third Global Evaluation Forum organized by EvalPartners took place in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic from April 25 to 28, 2017. It brought together government representatives, parliamentarians, development partners, foundations, the private sector, universities, the civil society, and the evaluation community to review progress of the EvalAgenda 2020, particularly in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to map out productive partnerships for the future. Testimonies of Forum participants on the significance of the event are presented on Youtube.

Participants to the Forum worked hard, took stock of the situation, and planned for the future, but a recurring theme was the need for strong links among the various efforts to promote quality evaluation in support of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. A concrete result of the deliberations was the adoption of the Bishkek Partnership Statement which was signed in the presence of the Speaker and Vice-Speaker of the Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic.

BISHKEK PARTNERSHIP STATEMENT

A RENEWED ENGAGEMENT TO WORK TOGETHER TO TRANSFORM OUR WORLD THROUGH EVALUATION

We, participants of the Third EvalPartners Global Evaluation Forum, meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, April 26 to 28 2017, reaffirm our engagement in evaluation as an effective instrument for promoting and supporting equitable sustainable development. As members of Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs), parliaments, governments, organizations for development cooperation, foundations, universities, the private sector, and civil society, including the next generation of evaluators, we form an alliance based on values of equity, gender equality, and social justice, driven by a desire to improve our world through questioning, experimentation, evidence-building, and learning.

We adhere to the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, and strongly support their achievement for the benefit of people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships. We realize that these Goals impact on the practice of evaluation world-wide by setting high expectations in terms of learning from experiences, providing rigorous and useful data, and continuously improving local, national, regional, and global interventions.

We stand by the EvalAgenda 2016-2020 which emphasized the importance, for the global family of nations, of the enabling environment for evaluation, the development of institutional capacities to promote, support, and use quality evaluations, the improvement of individual capacities to produce and to use evaluations, and the inter-linkages among these first three dimensions.

Meeting in Bishkek, we have taken stock of the realizations of recent years, particularly those driven by the action of the numerous constituencies of EvalPartners and other contributors to the global evaluation movement. While celebrating accomplishments, we also understand the magnitude of the task before us in supporting the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. We have agreed that success demands that multiple bridges be built among networks of people pursuing betterment in specific areas, be they geographic, topical, sectoral, or of another nature.

Consequently, we, participants of the Third EvalPartners Global Evaluation Forum, pledge to invest renewed effort in working in collaboration with others to support the objectives of the EvalAgenda 2020, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the ultimate vision of a peaceful, fair, equitable, and just global society in equilibrium with its natural environment.

Bishkek, the Kyrgyz Republic, 28 April 2017