Event Date: April 24, 2024 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: online

Presented by CIPS and the Fragile States Research Network (FSRN)

Book description:

Evaluation has become a key tool in assessing the performance of international organizations, in fostering learning, and in demonstrating accountability. Within the United Nations (UN) system, thousands of evaluators and consultants produce hundreds of evaluation reports worth millions of dollars every year. But does evaluation really deliver on its promise of objective evidence and functional use? By unravelling the internal machinery of evaluation systems in international organizations, this book challenges the conventional understanding of evaluation as a value-free activity. Vytautas Jankauskas and Steffen Eckhard show how a seemingly neutral technocratic tool can serve as an instrument for power in global governance; they demonstrate and explain how deeply politics are entrenched in the interests of evaluation stakeholders, in the control and design of IO evaluation systems, and also, to a lesser extent, in the content of evaluation reports. The analysis draws on 120 research interviews with evaluators, member state representatives, and IO secretariat officials, as well as on textual analysis of over 200 evaluation reports. The investigation covers 21 UN system organizations, including detailed case studies of the ILO, IMF, UNDP, UN Women, IOM, UNHCR, FAO, WHO, and UNESCO. Shedding light on the (in-)effectiveness of evidence based policymaking, the authors propose possible ways of better reconciling the observed evaluation politics with the need to gather reliable evidence that is used to improve the functioning of the UN. The answer to evaluation politics is not to abandon evaluation or isolate it from the stakeholders but to acknowledge surrounding political interests and design evaluation systems accordingly.

This event will take place in English.

Speakers:

Steffen Eckhard is Professor of Public Administration and Public Policy at Zeppelin University. He is also affiliated with the “Politics of Inequality” Center of Excellence at the University of Konstanz and is a Fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin.

Brenda Ammeraal works in the Policy and Best Practices Service of the United Nations Department of Peace Operations. She leads on knowledge management and guidance development in UN peacekeeping, including analyzing and sharing lessons learned in different peacekeeping contexts with the goal to increase its effectiveness.

Chair:

Benjamin Zyla is full professor in the School of International Development & Global Studies at the University of Ottawa where he directs the ‘Peacebuilding and Local Knowledge network (PLKN) and is the co-director of the Fragile States Research Network (FSRN). A political scientist by training, his work has focused on peacebuilding in fragile and conflict affected societies, post- conflict reconstruction, collective action problems of international (security) organizations, and qualitative methods. He has held teaching and research positions at Harvard University; NATO Defence College; Institute for Advanced Study, Konstanz University; École Normale Supérieure de Lyon; and Stanford University.