Our Story
Evaluators, commissioners, parliamentarians, and decision makers gathered at an International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) Global Assembly from September 30th to October 4th, 2019. They approved a Prague Declaration that supported the establishment of an International Evaluation Academy (IEAc). Subsequently, an international survey of evaluation practitioners commissioned by the International Development Association (IDEAS) confirmed overwhelming support for the initiative.
Our Purpose
The International Evaluation Academy (IEAc) is an inclusive, ambitious, and above-all activist venture designed to promote evaluation excellence, advocacy, social relevance, scientific credibility, and cultural responsiveness. The Academy is dedicated to evaluation transformation, creativity, and innovation. Transformation comes first: the IEAc exists first and foremost to identify, encourage, and support evaluation initiatives geared to evidence-based and multi-perspective transformational change.
The Academy embraces the vision of Agenda 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Agreement, and it aspires to make transdisciplinary, value-driven evaluation play an influential role in the promotion of global justice and social, economic, and environmental sustainability. It stands for sound, objective, professional, scientific, and culturally responsive evaluation in the public interest. It is not partisan, sectarian, or politically motivated.
The Academy reaches out to organizations in the scientific, academic, and social research fields. It endeavors to realize the vision of a world where evaluation practice and evaluative thinking are an integral part of all governments, civil society, and private sector efforts. It seeks to expand the reach of evaluation across borders and across all sectors of society towards a just, sustainable world where ‘no one is left behind’. It favors evaluation approaches that respect nature, protect human rights, and promote gender equality.
Governance
The organization is light – a virtual organization of volunteers. It acts ‘glocally’. The three-tier corporate organization consists of: (i) a Board of Directors (Trustees) which sets policy directions and provides oversight over all its work; (ii) a Council that advises the Board and manages the various tasks associated with the IEAc mission; and (iii) Fellows who implement these tasks and make the IEAc run.
Board Committees
The Board operates through four committees:
A Fellowship Committee, dealing with the admission of Fellows and ethics.
A Policy Committee, tackling finance and audit, operating principles and policies, as well as monitoring, evaluation and learning.
An Operations Committee, proposing strategies, programmes and managing the Small Grants programme.
A Partnership and Outreach Committee, focusing on partnerships, friends of the academy, and communication.
The Council
Providing strategic guidance, initiating action, and providing technical advice for all aspects of Academy work requires a diverse and dynamic Leadership Council. It reports to the Board through the Council Chair. Through its members’ expertise, commitment and connections, the Council is the coordinating centre of Fellows’ activities for the Academy, providing advice to the Board, designing thematic strategies and academy programmes and activities with partners. The composition of the Council can be found here.
Our Mission
We volunteer to transform, grow, professionalize, and scientifically validate evaluation practices. We encourage innovative changes in the way evaluations are designed, managed, and used to address the complex challenges of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. We seek to expand the reach of evaluation across borders and across all sectors of society. We are dedicated to evaluation excellence and we commit to promote evaluation professionalism and to support young and emerging evaluators.
Science is the study of how the world works and why it works as it does—an evaluative endeavour. We will work to establish and elevate evaluation as a scientific endeavour, discipline, and trans-discipline. We will strive to build a cumulative, credible, and useable body of knowledge about the processes and consequences of interventions aimed at changing the world. Such inquiries will honour and include diverse, multiple, and alternative ways of knowing in respectful dialogue and deliberation.
Our Vision
The Academy identifies, encourages, and supports evaluation initiatives geared to science-inspired transformational change. It embraces the vision of Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the Paris Agreement. It is guided by the Global Evaluation Agenda that visualizes a world when evaluation is an integral part of all governments, civil society, and private sector development efforts.