Decolonising Evaluation: Towards a Fifth Paradigm

Decolonising National Evaluation Systems

The world is facing rapidly declining health of the climate and ecosystems on which all species depend, with wealth accumulating in the hands of a few, a result of unsustainable economic systems. Evaluation has the potential to play a significant role in learning from the past and guiding a regenerative future, but for this, the approach to evaluation and the systems that produce it must be transformative and adopt a more holistic view of society and the planet.

This study aims to examine how African national evaluation systems (NESs) apply elements of a decolonised social-ecological model and how these elements could be strengthened.

This study involves a constructive critical analysis of the South African and Benin NESs, drawing on literature on decolonising evaluation and a new institutionalism lens on the formation of post-colonial bureaucracies, and tested in a webinar conversation on decolonising evaluation in November 2023.

The African NESs have embedded learning, incorporate both machine- and ecology-based elements, and exhibit some decolonised aspects. A key limitation is the lack of involvement of communities in the systems.

This study argues for: (1) allowing NESs to break from historical forms of bureaucratic functioning; (2) developing a systems-based approach as the basis for new thinking around NESs, strengthening their ecological aspects; (3) embracing the learning approaches we see in both countries; (4) embracing principles of participatory democracy and co-production by strengthening the voice of non-state actors, particularly citizens, in the formation of NESs and (5) changing power dynamics, in NESs and evaluations.

This article is contributing to a debate on how evaluation systems can be decolonised and power relations changed.

The Quest for Systemic Transformation: An inspiration to think again and differently

Chapter of a book on the Global Environment Facility 2024 Conference on Evaluating Environment and Development ‘Integrating for Sustainability – Evaluation Across Environmental and Socioeconomic Domains: An Introduction’, to be published mid 2026. Chapters drawing from Academy sessions at the conference include:

Chapter 2: The Quest for Systemic Transformation: An inspiration to think again and differently
Authors Beverly Parsons, Cristina Magro, Weronika Felcis
Link to Webinar

Chapter 11: Shifting Power and Perspectives in Evaluation Systems to Address the Polycrisis
Authors Ian Goldman, Thokozile Molaiwa, Edoe Dimitrij Agbodjan, Abdoulaye Gounou, Nicky Bowman, Andrealisa Belzer, Candice Morkel.

Summary
This chapter builds on work the International Evaluation Academy (IEAc, or Academy) has been taking forward so that evaluation is fit to contribute to address the polycrisis of climate and ecosystems breakdown, socio-political inequality, and economic upheaval. It takes a social-ecological perspective to evaluation systems. The six conditions of system change (Kania et al, 2018) reflect the hidden aspects of relationships and power which underly the visible world of policies, practices, and resourcing. Anchoring these are mental models and value systems, which need to change for transformational change to happen. Using this framing, we reflect on the South African and Benin national evaluation systems (NESs), the systems for professionalisation of evaluation, and evaluation that contributes to Indigenous self-determination and epistemic justice, drawing on the authors’ experience and observations over decades of work in each of these areas.

Overall, we observe that individualist and reductionist worldviews predominate and require shifts to address the polycrisis. There are incipient signs of this shift in pockets of evaluation ecosystems around the world, e.g. two new evaluation criteria for transformative equity and climate/ecosystems health in South Africa, and evidence of flexibility and learning in each of the systems we examined. What is not clear in some of these spaces is whether these are deliberate shifts with the intention to transform, or the effect of associational drift, where institutions adopt new ways of operating to maintain relevance in a new contextual reality. This may be part of a new area of research on the transformation of evaluation systems for the Academy. Evaluation systems need to be intentional about transformation, which includes fundamental power shifts, such as recognising and empowering local and Indigenous rights and voices, and transforming leverage points, such as evaluation education, professionalisation, and public management systems.

Chapter 12: How can evaluations support a socially just transition to planetary health.
Authors Sonal Zaveri, Ian Goldman, Jen Norins, Celeste Ghiano, Karen Kotschy, Sue Soal.
Link to Webinar

Summary
This chapter explores how evaluation practices contribute to systemic inequities and often overlook environmental consequences. It challenges the myth of neutrality in evaluation by emphasizing the role of values, power dynamics, and dominant epistemologies. Building on decolonization discourse, feminist theory, and environmental justice frameworks, the chapter argues for integrating equity and sustainability into evaluation practices.

Using case studies from India, South Africa, and Colombia, it illustrates how evaluations can address environmental and social justice, drawing insights from initiatives such as the Chipko Movement in India and Indigenous-led evaluations in the Andes. The discussion is framed around four key logics—social, capitalist, ecological, and cosmological—which shape how interventions are evaluated. Recognizing these logics highlights that evaluation is never neutral but instead reflects and reinforces particular worldviews.

The chapter further examines the role of power in evaluation, identifying visible, hidden, and invisible power structures that influence decision-making. It explores different expressions of power, including “power to,” “power with,” and “power within,” emphasizing the need for participatory, community-driven approaches. Finally, it presents emerging lessons on mainstreaming equity and environmental considerations in evaluations, advocating for transformative practices that promote a just transition for people and the planet.

Chapter 13: Journeying the Seven Directions: A Relational Indigenous Framework for Reconceiving and Reimagining Evaluation. Authors Nicole Bowman, Michael Quinn Patton, Charmagne E. Campbell-Patton.

Evaluation and the Transformational Imperative

Evaluation and the Transformational Imperative is a forthcoming 2026 special issue of the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation (JMDE), co-edited by Scott Chaplowe, Sonal Zaveri, Thania de la Garza, and Ian Goldman. The issue brings together a diverse set of contributions that examine evaluation’s role in a context of deep and intersecting global challenges, including climate and ecological breakdown, widening social and economic inequalities, geopolitical instability, and rapid technological change. These conditions—often described as a global polycrisis—raise fundamental questions about whether prevailing evaluation purposes, competencies, methods, values, epistemologies, and institutional arrangements are adequate for the times in which evaluation now operates.

Why this matters now: As societies confront accelerating, interconnected crises, evaluation is increasingly called upon not only to assess performance, but to help decision-makers, practitioners, and communities make sense of complexity, learn across boundaries, and inform choices that shape long-term, systemic futures.

This special issue builds on the IEAc–JMDE partnership established through the 2023 JMDE special issue on Decolonising Evaluation: Towards a Fifth Paradigm, extending that work by examining how evaluation can continue to evolve to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world.

Across the collection, authors engage directly with the transformational imperative: the need for systemic, just, and regenerative change in response to the escalating polycrisis. Contributions examine how evaluation frames problems, generates knowledge, and informs action—and whose knowledge, values, and perspectives are privileged in these processes. Rather than advancing a single prescriptive framework, the issue brings together complementary perspectives spanning systems and complexity, social-ecological and scientific foundations of evaluation, Indigenous and traditional knowledge systems, gender and feminist evaluation, power and values, futures thinking and foresight, artificial intelligence, climate-focused evaluation, and the positioning of evaluation within public management and funding systems. Collectively, the articles surface multiple pathways for strengthening evaluative thinking and practice in conditions of uncertainty, emergence, and transformation.

The special issue is shaped by an explicitly participatory and inclusive approach consistent with the IEAc’s values. From the outset, authorship was intentionally designed to combine highly experienced evaluators with voices that have been historically marginalized in the field, including Indigenous and non-Euro-Western perspectives. Diversity across geography, discipline, gender, age, and lived experience has been actively pursued, both to enrich the substance of the articles and to model more inclusive approaches to knowledge production. This commitment extends beyond author selection to the collaborative development, input, and review processes for the issue, reinforcing the Academy’s aim to build, share, and apply credible knowledge that is intellectually robust, socially grounded, and relevant to real-world decision-making.

Tentative article titles include:
• Introduction
• Where Next for Evaluation? Navigating the Polycrisis through Three Horizons
• Rethinking Evaluation Competencies for the Transformational Imperative
• Revisiting Evaluation as a Science: Towards a Transformational Social-Ecological Systemic Stance
• Reframing Evaluation: Complexity, Systems, and Transformation
• The People, Environment, Place, Space and Time Framework: Changing Mindsets and Building Futures (Indigenous and Traditional Evaluation for the TI)
• Gender and Transformation: Views from the Global South
• Feminist Evaluation and Addressing Power Dynamics for the TI
• Evaluation for Transformative Climate Responses
• Futures Thinking and Foresight for the TI
• AI and Evaluation: Exploring Made in Africa Approaches and Critical Competencies for Transformational Practice
• When You’re Talking of Changing the World, Start with Evaluation (Integrating Evaluation into Public Management in a Time of Increasing Uncertainty)
• Measuring Collectivization Initiatives: Creating a Knowledge Base from Collective Voices
• Repositioning the Role of Evaluation in Funders