From 17th to 19th September 2018, the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation (GPFE) in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation, Sri Lanka Evaluation Association and EvalPartners, organized EvalColombo2018, a three-day forum in Colombo, Sri Lanka on the theme of Responsible Parliaments: Embracing Evaluation for Agenda 2030.
The forum sought to promote the demand and use of evaluation by parliamentarians and generate innovative approaches for scaling them up at a global level.
The event attracted approximately 250 participants including 105 Parliamentarians from 70 countries, as well as representatives from international agencies, professional evaluation associations (VOPEs), civil society organisations and other stakeholders. More than 40 African parliamentarians participated, as well as African evaluators, parliamentary staffers, and development partners – including CLEAR-AA, UN-Women, and Twende Mbele.
The Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) at the African Development Bank (AfDB), represented by Kobena Hanson, Principal Evaluation Capacity Development Officer, participated both as an independent evaluation department and as host of the Secretariat of the African Parliamentarians’ Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE).
Central to the forum’s objectives were the following:
- Reaffirm the importance of using evidence as part of good governance;
- Raise awareness on the role of parliaments/parliamentarians in driving the SDGs agenda;
- Promote dialogue amongst parliamentarians, government, evaluation practitioners, and CSOs to encourage their joint use of evaluations for decision making; and
- Agree on way forward compiled in the Colombo Declaration including country commitments for National Evaluation Policies/ Systems and Voluntary National Review.
H.E. Maithripala Sirisena, President, Republic of Sri Lanka officially opened the forum. Also in attendance at the opening of EvalColombo2018 was the Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister, Republic of Sri Lanka, together with the Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, the Chair of the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation and President of AfrEA as well as representatives of Development Organizations.
The forum featured keynote speeches, plenary/parallel/working group sessions over the three-days to interrogate pertinent topical issues, drawing on the nuanced knowledge of experts in the field of evaluation, decision- and policy makers, CSOs, and development partners, amongst others to hash-out issues and forge a common ground forward. Deliberations centred on the following topics:
- National Evaluation Policies and Systems for Good Governance and Accountability
- Evaluation and National Evaluation Policies for Evidence-Based Policy Making
- National evaluation systems and national evaluation capacity
- Evaluation as a lever to increase the socio-economic impact and efficiency of public investments.
- Experience sharing through a presentation of case studies.
- Voluntary National Reviews
- Role of Parliamentarians in holding the government to account in Agenda 2030.
- Evaluation for the Executive and the Legislature.
- EvalPartners’ role in supporting National Evaluation Systems.
- Country commitments for making parliaments responsible for evaluation and VNRs and Plenary presentations on country commitments
IDEV was invited by EvalColombo2018 organizers to facilitate discussions of Anglophone African delegates during the ‘Exchange of Experiences’ sessions of Day I and Day II. Theses “Exchange of Experiences” sessions were particularly useful in getting the delegates to articulate individual and country experiences in promoting and using evaluation. Other contributions by IDEV to the conference included video interviews with Member of Parliaments attending the GPFE.
IDEV also used this opportunity to: a) raise awareness about APNODE and associated ECD portfolio; b) sensitize, and invite delegates to join APNODE; c) engage with EvalPartners on their Flagship Program (FP1) to identify possible areas of collaboration; and, d) invite delegates to the upcoming 9th AfrEA Conference in March 2019, in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
The three-day event culminated in the unanimous endorsement of the Colombo Declaration, which included country commitments for National Evaluation Policies/Systems and Voluntary National Reviews.