During its first full year of operation, the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI) realized many of its goals and set itself up for a future of learning and growth. GEI aims to find better ways to address country monitoring and evaluation (M&E) challenges by increasing coordination among national and international initiatives, thereby leveraging experiences and lessons learned from institutions working to build M&E capacities. In FY22, the initiative successfully leveraged the local, regional, and global expertise of its international cadre of partners. As a result, GEI generated collaboration and facilitated important relationships, scaled successful approaches while adapting them to local needs, and inspired new solutions.

In FY22, GEI partners

• Actively delivered diagnostic, technical, and other strategic evaluation capacity development advisory services to governments in 41 developing countries (with deeper engagement in 24 priority countries), and launched the Monitoring and Evaluation Systems Analysis diagnostic tool.
• Delivered 98 training and professional development programs that increased the capacities of M&E stakeholders in developing countries, financially supporting over 300 participants.
• Convened and engaged around the most important M&E topics, capturing innovative M&E knowledge and practical experience in the field and sharing it globally and locally, with a focus on South-South exchange.

The Centers for Learning and Evaluation Results (CLEAR), one of GEI’s key implementing partners, delivered advisory services to governments seeking to build or improve their national monitoring and evaluation systems. Global hubs supported work in the Caribbean Community, Cabo Verde, and Lesotho.

École nationale d’administration publique, one of GEI’s partners, launched the first international training program offered in Arabic. Thirty-three participants, 18 of them women, from Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, and Tunisia, joined the first training.

The annual gLocal Evaluation Week, organized by the GEI in partnership with local, regional, and global organizations and experts, took place in 53 countries with 369 events and more than 15,000 participants. Mexico, Brazil, and India hosted the most events. Many of the presentations are available online for viewing. The theme was “EvalEvolve: The Evolution of M&E in the 21st century.”

The 2022 workshop series by the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) included topics such as digital analytics for M&E, national evaluation in public service, geo-enabling for monitoring and supervision, and theory-based causal analysis.

GEI also developed and ran Launchpad, a 12-week structured pre-incubation program for early-stage enterprises offering innovative M&E solutions. Program instructors came from the M&E field, Silicon Valley, and world-class business accelerators. The first Launchpad cohort included 10 companies from 9 developing countries.

Finally, in FY22, GEI took ownership of the Better Evaluation online platform, which provides free access to information on more than 450 evaluation approaches, tasks, methods, and processes, with over 4,000 specific resources. Currently, the platform has 1.29 million annual users.