Youth as future leaders are central to development of any country. In this EvalYear the international evaluation community is giving significant attention to young and emerging evaluators. Regional and international VOPEs such as AEA, EES, EvalMENA and Francophone Evaluation Network (RFE) have already started to mobilize and are developing road maps for young and emerging evaluators. 

Also this is a priority area identified in the global consultation for 2016-2020 Global Agenda and will be a significant agenda point at the EvalPartners 2nd Global Forum to be held at the Parliament of Nepal in November 2015. 

Marco Segone and Natalia Kosheleva, EvalPartners Co-chairs

EvalYouth+ is a global partnership network to promote young and emerging evaluators to become technically sound, experienced and well networked professionals in promoting evaluation culture at national, regional and international levels. The shaping and launch of EvalYouth+ will be participatory in nature, and will leverage existing processes within the International Year of Evaluation, by taking advantage of the events organized by many stakeholders. EvalYouth+ will be formally launched at the 2015 Global Evaluation Week to be held at the Parliament of Nepal in Kathmandu from 23 – 27 November 2015.
For additional information, please contact Marie Gervais Marie.Gervais@fmed.ulaval.ca and Ziad Moussa ziad@ioce.net, Co-chairs of the EvalYouth+ Global Network.

Hon. Collins Chabane, former South Africa's Minister of Performance Monitoring, Evaluation and Administration, was killed in a car accident on 15th March.  He was a guiding light and a source of great inspiration to the South Africa's M&E system. May his soul rest in peace.

EvalPartners dedicates a scholarship in the name of Hon. Chabane for a young evaluator from Africa wishing to attend the Global Forum in Nepal, in recognition of what great women and men like Hon. Chabane can bring to the profession.

The European Evaluation Society (EES) Thematic Working Group for Emerging Evaluators was established after the EES Conference in Dublin, 2014. It brings together young evaluation professionals and researchers as well as those who are new to the evaluation field. The initiative aims at; bringing the ideas and perspectives of emerging evaluators in to the work of EES; promoting a stronger interaction of new and experienced members of EES; connecting young/new evaluation professionals and researchers across Europe.

The group is currently working on the preparation of a European Virtual Conference of Emerging Evaluators planned for the second half of the International Year of Evaluation!

Submitted by Julia Brümmer on behalf of the EES - TWG

The American Evaluation Association (AEA) develops its young evaluators in two ways. First, graduate students of color and from other under-represented groups can receive a Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) to work in organizations across the United States and to receive special in-depth training. Click here to learn more and here to see the current GEDI interns. Second, any graduate student or new evaluator can join a special AEA Topical Interest Group (TIG) designed specifically for their interests. In particular, this TIG’s peer mentoring program helps young evaluators develop their practical evaluation skills and network with experienced evaluators and potential employers. 

Written by Catherine Dizon of the University of California at Davis and by John LaVelle of Claremont Graduate University

New Zealand celebrated the official launch of the government-led initiative to develop robust evidence-based policy, which is part of the year-long activities for the International Year of Evaluation on Wednesday 23 March. It was attended by about 200 key senior leaders in policy, programme and evaluation teams in the NZ public sector, executive members of two professional evaluation bodies - the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association (ANZEA) and the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES), the academe and the private sector evaluation practitioners. It was considered as the gathering of who’s who in the evaluation sector in New Zealand. Finance Minister Bill English launched the cross agency initiative for the International Year of Evaluation highlighting the critical contribution of research and evaluation to government policy and the impact this has on New Zealanders' lives.

The Minister in the Presidency, the Honourable Jeff Radebe and the Chairperson of the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA), who is also the Director General of the Public Service Commission (PSC), Richard Levin officially launched the International Year of Evaluation in South Africa on Thursday, 19 March 2015 at Wits in Johannesburg. SAMEA together with the Wits School of Governance (WSG) and the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for Anglophone Africa (CLEAR AA) co-hosted the launch. Please read the exciting speech made by the minister. South Africa celebrates EvalYear with series of events including SAMEA conference to be held in October.