As evaluators we are increasingly being asked to undertake participatory evaluations. There are a number of benefits to facilitating participation in evaluation such as:

• beneficiaries, stakeholders and program staff gain an exceptional amount of learning and capacity building from their involvement
• participation in the process of developing recommendations means that the recommendations are far more likely to be accepted and used. A major failing of evaluation (which is recognised internationally) is that evaluation studies frequently fail to influence the way a program or project is delivered.

In this “hands-on” workshop will explore the role of ‘evaluator as facilitator’ within participatory evaluation studies. We will outline the basic tools and methods of facilitation that are useful in evaluation. We will also focus on some participatory evaluation techniques such as program logic, the Most Significant Change technique and the Evaluation Summit. We will debate some of the pitfalls and traps and how to deal with these in your context. We conclude the workshop with a discussion about some of the underlying philosophies behind these approaches to evaluation and facilitation.

This training would be best suited for professionals with previous experience in evaluation, or staff who are tasked with conducting evaluations in the workplace, and for evaluation specialists and facilitators who wish to add participatory evaluation techniques to their tool-box.