UNDP Independent Evaluation Office 25d ago

In this participatory crowdsourcing session, global evaluation experts came together to help shape the agenda for the upcoming National Evaluation Capacity (NEC) Conference. The session was moderated by Rayza Oblitas (UNDP Independent Evaluation Office), with speakers Janis Grychowski, Chief of the Capacity Development Section at the Independent Evaluation Office of UNDP, and Dr. Douglas Glandon, Acting Program Manager of the Global Evaluation Initiative at the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. This session was part of gLocal 2026 Evaluation Week, organized by the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI) at the World Bank. The NEC Conference is a flagship event of the UNDP Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), co-hosted with the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI) at the World Bank. This session was designed to gather insights from evaluation practitioners around the world to inform the conference agenda - with a particular focus on the five actions of the Beijing Action Plan developed at the previous NEC Conference in China (2024). Participants joined from UNDP, government agencies, and private consulting firms across the globe, sharing locations ranging from Morocco and Albania to Chile and Mongolia. Using live Menti polling, the discussion explored three key questions: - Which aspects of national evaluation capacity development are most critical to maintain? - Which parts of the Beijing Action Plan show the most promise for implementation? - Which challenges remain unaddressed in strengthening evaluation capacity? Janis opened with an overview of the NEC Conference history and the five action points of the Beijing Action Plan, while Dr. Glandon emphasized the importance of moving beyond general frameworks to address the specific implementation challenges that arise in different contexts and institutional settings. The session closed with participants offering concrete suggestions for how the upcoming NEC could be most useful - including inviting senior government representatives, providing practical guidance, showcasing good practices in financing national evaluation systems, and demonstrating the real-world impact of evaluation investments. Learn more about the NEC Conference: https://nec.undp.org/