Welcome to the first newsletter of the EvalGender+ Network. EvalGender+ Network is a global partnership to promote equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluation with a "no one left behind lens". It was officially launched at the Global Evaluation Week held in November 2015 at the parliament of Nepal.
The network is managed by the Management Group which consists of representatives from regional VOPEs and partners. There are five Task Forces actively working on key action areas. We invite all interested evaluation professionals to join hands with Task Forces and the EvalGender+ Network for promotion of equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluation in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Hope you enjoy reading the newsletter.

Marco Segone, Co-Chair

The Community of Practice on Gender and Evaluation, with more than 2000 members globally is an open global platform that promotes engendering national policy through evaluation. Gender and Evaluation will serve as a knowledge hub for equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluation (EFGRE) on behalf of EvalGender+.
We invite you to join the CoP by signing up and be part of the Gender and Evaluation growing community!

The adoption of a gender perspective in the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies and programmes seems to have been depoliticized since it was recognized as a key gender mainstreaming strategy for the promotion of development at the Beijing World Conference on Women (1995). This Decalogue helps to address gender issues in the policy and practice of evaluation. This was facilitated by Fabiola Amariles and Silvia Salinas (LA&C Network of Women in Management -REDWIM), Julia Espinosa and María Bustelo (Gender Group of European Evaluation Society -EES), Alejandra Faúndez and Marisa Weinstein (Gender, Evaluation and Human Rights group of LA&C Network of Evaluation - ReLAC).

EvalPartners is pleased to announce that the third Global Forum will take place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from 26-28 April 2017. The event is jointly organized by EvalPartners, the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE), the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG), the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan, the government of Kyrgyzstan and the Monitoring and Evaluation Network of Kyrgyzstan. It will bring together government representatives, parliamentarians, VOPEs, evaluation practitioners, development partners and civil society. The key theme of the event will be “Transforming our world through evaluation: engagement and partnerships for the better world we want” particularly in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 
The EvalGender+ Management Group members will attend the Global Forum to advance discussions on equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluation.

The EvalGender+ Network is implementing the "No one left behind" project to promote evaluation of SDGs with an equity and gender lens. The project was launched with a High Level event and a Technical Workshop was held March 16-17, 2016. The report is available online. More information and resources are available online     
In addition to the new guidance on Evaluating SDGs with a “No one left behind” lens" the Network also developed accompanying training materials to be adapted to each country and context. The project is also supporting 11 projects in the form of Technical Assistance to countries which can be found on the website. We are planning to gradually share experience of these projects in subsequent issues of this EvalGender+ newsletter.

The EvalGender+ Network/EvalPartners provided a grant to the Asia-Pacific Evaluation Association (APEA) for its recently concluded international evaluation Conference, held in Hanoi, Vietnam from 21-25 November, 2016. Significant events were conference session with five keynote addresses and 20 papers were presented with all of them focusing on the SDGs and various aspects of the SDG goals. One of the highlights of the session were Stream 2 Session Title: Equity Principles in Action under the SDGs with Key note speaker Marco Segone highlighting “The world that we have vs the world that we want.”
Post conference events included two day “regional consultation on equity-focused and gender-responsive national evaluation policies” which was organized by APEA, Parliamentarians Forum for Development Evaluation – South Asia and Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation in collaboration with EvalGender+, UN Women and UNICEF. VOPE leaders, parliamentarians and government representatives from 16 Asian countries with representatives from development partners participated in the consultation to share the current progress and prepare country work plans to advance the NEP process. This was also followed by a workshop on “How to manage gender-responsive evaluation” organized by Yumiko Kanemitsu, the Regional Evaluation Specialist of UN Women.

The EvalGender+ Management Group meeting held in New York in April 2016 created task forces on various issues relating to gender-responsive and equity-focused evaluations for charting the way forward to achieve the dream EvalGender+ works for. 

The Task Forces include: Capacity Development, Advocacy and Leadership, Communication and Knowledge Management, Participatory Evaluation and Tools & Approaches. Any interested individuals are welcome to join task forces and contribute to the evaluation field. Please write to coordinator@evalpartners.org, so that your request will be directed to the relevant task force.

The Capacity Development Task Force set up various objectives including mapping of various existing capacity building initiatives and learning resources in the field of evaluation and assessing the extent equity and gender equality focus informed these training/learning efforts. To make the responses more broad-based a number of approaches and processes were followed. 

The mapping report is available on the ECOI website. The analysis brings out that there has been an increased awareness all around the globe during the past couple of years regarding the need for EFGR evaluations and for developing national evaluation capacities in this area. There is still a need for capacity building at various levels and sensitization of commissioners and managers of evaluations with special reference to achieve the goals of SGDs in which no one is left behind. Development of professionals would lead to utilization of evaluation results. SDGs which have cross domain require a systems approach and need to follow innovative new approaches for evaluation. Capacities to imply such techniques need to be strengthened at local levels. With the changing world order scenario and demand for equality and equity, monitoring and evaluation should be playing a key role in achieving as well as measuring SDGs. There is a need to have newer approaches and tools that address various issues relating to gender. Advocacy would be the key to its success which requires networking at various levels and also the provisions of funds.
As the mapping of resources indicates, the knowledge products have been developed to facilitate these capacity development initiatives, primarily by UN agencies, but also supplemented by the efforts of other international and national organizations. A number of checklists, guidelines, handbooks have been developed on how to integrate gender in the process of evaluation. The immediate need is to develop advocacy material to include EFGR issues in the development and evaluation. Various networks and VOPEs should come forward and join together for the task.

The American Evaluation Association’s (AEA) Feminist Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (TIG) is a member of the EvalGender+ Management group. The Feminist Issues in Evaluation TIGs is one of very many TIGs under the AEA, and a major component of the life of AEA members. Similar to other TIGs, the Feminist evaluation TIG is defined around a special topic, namely the transformative power of feminist evaluation both within the profession and in the lives of women and men, girls and boys. Started in 1997, with a goal to enhance the use a feminist lens when evaluating programs or services seeking to address gender inequality or inequities, today the scope of TIG discussions covers a wide range of feminist, gender equality, human rights, social justice, inclusion, and international perspectives.
During the AEA conference in October 2016 in Atlanta, several members of the EvalGender+ Management Group presented a panel on “Challenges and Successes of Operationalizing EvalGender+ Globally”. The presenters discussed that through the creation of global, national and regional alliances and working groups, collaboration between the VOPEs, EvalGender+ will need to continue with current actions to advance in its three areas of work: mobilize and advocate, innovate, and share, and to support equity-focused and gender-responsive approaches to M&E of SDGs.
Please consider engaging with the Feminist TIG and AEA in the ongoing call for proposals for next AEA conference in Washington DC and contributing.

The National System of Evaluation and Results Management in Colombia, better known as Sinergia, has established itself as one of the leading entities on Monitoring and Evaluation of public policy in the region. Sinergia is coordinated by the National Planning Department (DNP), and its aim is to generate and promote the use of evidence in policy decision-making and to increase transparency, accountability and efficiency in the public sector.

Recently Sinergia has incorporated the SDGs as part of their processes of M&E. Furthermore, Sinergia has a longstanding relationship with the United Nations in general, and with UN Women in particular, and have had their support to include a differential approach into the M&E system.

As part of this effort, the DNP, the Congress and a women’s organization in Colombia applied to receive technical assistance from EvalPartners/ EvalGender+. They were selected and received 20.000 USD which will be distributed for two components: one is directed on evaluation with a gender focus and budgeting with a gender focus; the other component is to strengthen the evaluation system in Sinergia. The objective is to build information for the government and legislators to account for their missions, and to provide orientation in evaluation design.

For Sinergia it is very important to achieve the SDGs, and to reduce gender disparity by providing evidence on gender inequality, discrimination, and many other problems faced by women and women organizations in the country, with the idea that more information will allow policy makers to make better decisions, and improve girls and women’s lives.