gLOCAL Events in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific Explore M&E Within the Context of Climate, Conflict, COVID and Gender

This year was the fifth edition of the annual gLOCAL Evaluation Week, a global monitoring and evaluation (M&E) knowledge-sharing event. Over 300 sessions were held in 53 countries around the globe and thousands of participants joined in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. As in previous years, GEI Implementing Partner, the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for South Asia (CLEAR-SA) helped to convene events in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific region, curating a line-up of events that addressed key priority themes in the region. Twenty practitioners and key M&E stakeholders organized and participated in 24 events across India, Korea, the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Afghanistan.

This year’s gLOCAL theme was “The Future of M&E: Culture, Context, and Collaboration.” The events convened by CLEAR-SA drew upon insights and best practices from thematic areas such as climate action, gender, education, building national M&E systems and capacities, and participatory and inclusive M&E. Within the context of COVID-19 recovery, new instances of conflict, climate change, widespread poverty and inequality, the M&E community in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific explored pertinent questions and focused on policy-relevant debates and discussions.

For example, the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (NITI Aayog - Government of India) - the apex M&E body of the Government of India - conducted a session on new and effective models of financing government M&E schemes. Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, a strategic philanthropy and policy foundation within the climate and environment space, explored how M&E can be embedded within climate action. UNICEF shared lessons on developing national evaluation capacities, focusing upon Nepal, and the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), a research and policy advocacy organization, presented their insights on generating and using evidence-based on gender-transformative programming.

CLEAR-SA/J-PAL South Asia, in collaboration with J-PAL Africa, also conducted a session on strengthening regional research capacities to generate policy-relevant evidence in low- and middle-income countries. The session explored the importance of strengthening local researcher capacity, the demand for capacity-building opportunities in each region, and the systemic barriers or challenges faced by researchers in the global south. The session also featured two scholars from South Asia and Africa, who shared their insights on the barriers faced by regional researchers and presented findings from their studies. The scholars, Dr. Debayan Pakrashi (Associate Professor, Department of Economic Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur) and Dr. Aaron Abuosi (Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, University of Ghana Business School) presented their research, which used impact evaluations to understand the effectiveness of interventions within nutrition and health.

The event highlighted the crucial role of local expertise in generating policy-relevant evidence. Event moderators explored the existing ecosystem demand for regional scholars and brought to light three key barriers faced by these scholars: the lack of training, mentorship, and accessible funding. In particular, mentorship and connections with academic networks were recognized as important inputs for increasing the contribution of researchers in low- and middle-income countries in the production of rigorous, context-relevant research. The event also included a discussion of various avenues that seek to address these barriers, such as CLEAR-SA’s Research for Impact Fellowship and J-PAL’s Regional Scholars Programs, specifically the Indian Scholars Program and the African Scholars Program.

The scholars and moderators also addressed a variety of audience questions, which ranged from how to ensure gender parity within programs targeting regional researchers, to the generalisability of research findings, and overcoming challenges while working with different stakeholders.

Make sure to visit the gLOCAL website to view videos and other documents from a variety of 2023 gLOCAL events. Please note: event organizers are adding content every day, so check back often.