On 18 June EvalPartners circulated a call for innovative ideas for strengthening the demand for and use of evaluation to inform policy making, especially in the context and spirit of the International Year for Evaluation (EvalYear) (2015). Ideas were invited that relate to proposed actions at international, national and/or sub-national levels.  Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs) were eligible to participate, though they could include cooperative partnerships with not-for-profit organizations, governmental, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations, academic institutions and private sector organizations with an interest in and/or mandate for evidence-based policy making.  Information about the Innovation Challenge was posted at http://www.mymande.org/evalpartners/innovation_challenge.

Twenty two very interesting initial proposals were received.  Out of them the EvalPartners Executive Committee and Management Group selected five that seemed most innovative and promising and relevant to the purposes set forth in the call.  Their proposals are summarized in the attached Word document.  Briefly they are:

• Engagement of Parliamentarians in strengthening an enabling environment for evaluation, submitted by the Parliamentarians Forum of South Asia jointly with CoE/South Asia, Pakistan Evaluation Network and European Evaluation Society.
• Strengthening the use of Evaluation in South Asia, submitted by CoE-Nepal,  Evaluation Association  of Bhutan and CoE-Bangladesh
• Institutionalizing evaluation at national and sub-national level in Africa , submitted by the Moroccan Evaluation Association along with EREN (Egypt), MASSE (Madagascar) and RISE (Cote d’Ivoire).
• Strengthening evaluation of public policies and governance in Francophone countries– focused on organizing a Francophone International Forum on Evaluation, jointly submitted by Réseau Francophone de l’évaluation (RFE) and Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
• Learning from evaluations that have made a difference, submitted by a coalition of EES, ReLAC, CES, AES, AfrEA and SLEvA.

We congratulate these five teams, look forward to their implementation of the innovative ideas they have proposed, and commend to others in the international evaluation community to read their proposals, available here. Indeed, these are ideas many of us can take advantage of and emulate.

Best regards
Marco Segone and Natalia Kosheleva, EvalPartners Co-Chairs
Jim Rugh, EvalPartners Coordinator