Evaluation Advocacy Week Harnessing Agile Learning for Impact

1.  Background

Rwanda Monitoring and Evaluation Organization (RMEO) is a Rwandan local non – Governmental organization made up of “voluntary persons” and “corporate members'' whose aim is to promote professional monitoring and evaluation practices.

RMEO mission is to cultivate the highest professional standards in monitoring and evaluation practice and theory through highly skilled and motivated members and to promote a nationwide culture of using data for evidence-based actions. It is in that framework that it is organizing an evaluation week from June 15th to June 16th 2023 under the theme “Harnessing Agile Learning for Impact”.

2.   Rationale

The rationale behind the "Harnessing agile learning for impact" initiative is to help organizations navigate the rapidly changing landscape of today's world. With globalization, technological advancements, and numerous other factors, the world has become incredibly complex and unpredictable. Organizations must be able to adapt quickly and effectively to stay relevant and achieve their goals.

Evaluation and learning are critical components of any successful organization in today's world. By harnessing the power of evaluation and learning, organizations can identify and address key lessons learned, and bottlenecks/challenges, to recommend strategies for improvement of performance, and to achieve their goals. Additionally, evaluation and learning can help organizations meet the needs of their stakeholders, including their employees, customers, and communities.

In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever to harness agile learning to achieve impact. With the ongoing pandemics, climate-change related disasters and other challenges, organizations must be able to adapt quickly and effectively to those challenges by embracing evaluation and learning. By so doing, they can stay ahead of the curve and achieve meaningful impact.

3.   Objectives of the Advocacy and Evaluation Week

a)     General Objective

This will be an opportunity to bring together practitioners and stakeholders in the field of evaluation to discuss and learn from their experiences, and to identify best practices for maximizing the impact of evaluation efforts.

b)     The Specific Objectives

The Advocacy Evaluation week intends to achieve the following specific objectives:

• Identifying the challenges associated with learning from programs and projects in times of significant change and uncertainty, and sharing strategies for addressing
• Exploring how evaluation can be used to inform decision-making in times of crisis or sudden change, and to ensure that resources are allocated effectively and efficiently in response to emerging
• Examining the role of evaluation and learning in supporting adaptive management and continuous learning, and developing approaches for embedding evaluation throughout the programs or projects
• Identifying emerging trends and best practices in the design and implementation of evaluation efforts, and exploring how these approaches can be adapted and applied in the very changing
• Building networks and communities of practice

4.   Expected Results

At the end of the Evaluation Advocacy week, participants will be able to:

• Understand the monitoring and evaluating to identify their linkages with learning and address the challenges associated with
• Learn from failures and adapt their strategies as well as to learn to build resilience
• Leverage technology to collect and analyze data in real-time, and use this information to make informed decisions during times of crisis

• Engage with stakeholders to ensure that evaluation and agile learning activities are relevant and useful
• Ensure that evaluation and learning activities are conducted in an ethical and responsible manner during times of crisis, and that vulnerable populations are not further marginalized
• Promote equity and ensure that marginalized communities are not left behind during difficult situations

5.   Areas of Discussion

The Advocacy and Evaluation week will accommodate the presentations covering the evaluation and agile learning for impact during difficult situations, such as COVID-19, floods, etc. Therefore, we call up the presentations that can address one or more questions from the following list of questions:

1. Monitoring, Evaluation and Agile learning: definitions, strategies and best
2. The challenges of conducting evaluation and learning activities during humanitarian emergency situations: What are some of the practical challenges that organizations face when conducting evaluation and learning activities, and how can these challenges be overcome?
3. Humanitarian Planning in M&E with emphasis on Theory of Change (ToC ) in emergency The role of agile learning in building resilience: How can organizations build resilience to external shocks by learning from past experiences and adapting their strategies accordingly?
4. Using evaluation to learn from success and failures during emergency situations: Social-economic impact of Covid-19 in Rwanda?
5. The importance of stakeholder engagement in evaluation and learning: How can organizations engage with stakeholders to ensure that evaluation and learning activities are relevant and useful during difficult situations?
6. The ethics of evaluation and learning during times of crisis: How can organizations ensure that evaluation and learning activities are conducted in an ethical and

responsible manner, and that vulnerable populations are not further marginalized?

1. The role of evaluation and learning in promoting equity: How can evaluation and learning activities be used to promote equity and ensure that marginalized communities are not left behind?
2. The role of young (YEEs) emerging evaluators in humanitarian situation

6.   Target Audience

The target audience for the activities during the evaluation week includes interested individuals and organizations such as foundations, multilaterals, bi-lateral agencies, INGOs, legislators, policymakers, evaluators, researchers, monitoring and evaluation specialists, program managers, policy analysts, university students, and other stakeholders interested in utilizing evaluation and learning to drive, impact and support decision-making in times of uncertainty and change. It also includes those working in areas affected by crises, such as health, education, humanitarian aid, and development sectors.

7.   Event Program