On April 28, Representative Howard Berman, Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, introduced legislation requiring a comprehensive strategy for United States efforts to reduce global poverty and promote broad-based economic growth in developing countries. It is called the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act (H.R. 2139), and was co-sponsored by Representative Mark Kirk. This is the first phase of what Representative Berman hopes will be a complete restructuring of the Foreign Assistance Act.
 
A major portion of this bill is devoted to the establishment of an evaluation program to support the development and execution of foreign assistance programs. It is based on draft legislation and supporting materials that were prepared by a small working group, including members of the AEA Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF) and the Lundy Foundation, and reflects the principles embodied in the EPTF's "Evaluation Roadmap for a More Effective Government."
 
This legislative language is probably the most complete evaluation policy ever included in a Federal draft bill. This is just the beginning of what will be a long and complicated legislative process, and there are no guarantees that this bill will become law. However, evaluation will be an integral part of the discussions that surround a new assessment of this nation's foreign assistance activities.
 
Some of the key evaluation provisions, which are found in section 3 of the bill, are:

While it is unlikely that the evaluation language in this bill will be modified any time soon, we may have opportunities to comment in the future. To facilitate the availability of advice from AEA members on this bill, AEA will be hosting three webinars. Each is the same and will incorporate a brief description of the bill's provisions as well as next steps in the legislative process, with extended time for questions and discussions. We are holding them in different time zones so as to encourage participation from our colleagues around the world.
 
If you would like to participate, please send your preferred time to Ashley in the AEA office at office@eval.org. She will send information so that you may view the webinar online and/or listen via VOIP or dial-in.
 
Time 1: Friday, June 5, 7:00 AM EST
Time 2: Wednesday, June 10: 3:00 PM EST
Time 3: Thursday, June 11: 8:30 PM EST
 
Go to the foreign affairs website for the announcement and a link to the bill itself

 

Robert M. Goodman, a Professor and Dean of Indiana University's School of Health, has written extensively on issues concerning community health development. A principal investigator and evaluator on projects for CDC, the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Substance Abuse Prevention, the Children's Defense Fund, and several state health departments, Goodman's presentation is entitled Looking Back at 20 Years in Health Promotion Evaluation. His lessons draw from the evaluation of programs funded by The Children's Defense Fund, The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Office of Women's Health, and Philanthropic Foundations and will focus on important public health concerns such as access to prenatal care among poor and underrepresented, advancement of Centers of Excellence for Women's Health in teaching hospitals, breast and cervical cancer programs in rural areas, and community-based diabetes programming. 
 
Please register at your earliest convenience as slots are filled on a first-come basis.
 
Go to the Summer Evaluation Institute Website

AEA's 5,700 members worldwide represent a range of backgrounds, specialties and interest areas. Join us as we profile a different member each month via our Question and Answer column. This month's profile spotlights an independent consultant long active with AEA. 
 

 

Why do you choose to work in the field of evaluation?
"My experience after my BA was developing programs for Seattle's Indian community. At some point, I was told we needed an external evaluation for one of our programs, and I was quite concerned about an "outsider" judging our work. Despite my fears, the experience was very positive. I was so impressed I told him I wanted to learn how to evaluate and he recruited me to graduate school."

What's the most memorable or meaningful evaluation that you have been a part of - and why?
"It's hard to single out any one. I have two that are memorable. In working with a college tribal program that was creating a multidisciplinary approach to tribal resource management, I learned the importance of collaboration. Evaluators can work very closely with program staff, helping them reflect on what is happening for insightful learning. I think that evaluation played a role in helping that project deepen an understanding of its work. I also worked in a multi-university program where doctoral students were assigned to me as evaluation fellows. I learned a lot about evaluation capacity building and almost all of them are now actively working in the field of evaluation and some are leaders in their respective AEA TIGs. Building capacity is a central reason I am working with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium to frame evaluation to be more responsive to American Indian values and epistemologies."

 

What advice would you give to those new to the field?
1) I would encourage them to become very good at understanding what research is, how you do it and how you adapt it to fit the situation. 
2) It is important to be good facilitators, good listeners, to bring people together and learn how to get good conversations going.
3) Understanding the dynamics of organizations is important.
 
Why did you choose to become involved in AEA at the TIG level?
"When I went to my first AEA conference, I felt very lonely. There were few American Indians. Over time, we developed a way to get information about AEA out to American Indian people. We began to build our numbers, including Maori and Native Hawaiians, and it was a great when we organized the Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation TIG. It's nice to have a time to come together and talk to each other."

 

If you know someone who represents The Face of AEA, send recommendations to gwen@eval.org

 

Awards & Honors
AEA member Amarachuku Enyia has been honored with the AERA Law & Education SIG's Emerging Scholars Award for a paper submitted for this year's conference. The paper was called Finding Plan B: Critical Remedy Construction for School Districts Operating Under Education Equity Consent Decrees Post Seattle and Louisville. It's a legal analysis of the direction education equity cases are taking since the Court's 2007 decision in the Seattle and Louisville with an examination of the implications of the newest administration/potential Supreme Court appointments.

AEA member Cassandra Golding is a recipient of the University of Rhode Island's 2009 Diversity Awards. A doctoral student  in clinical psychology, she was honored for innovative research and publications including an article in the Journal of Feminist Family Therapy entitled Redefining the Nuclear Family: An Exploration of Resiliency in Lesbian Parents, since reprinted in Lesbian Families' Challenges and Means of Resiliency. For more information, see http://www.uri.edu/mcc/DiversityAwards/2009/index.html

AEA member Dustin Duncan has been awarded the Harvey Fineberg Fellowship in Cancer Prevention from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Duncan is Center Coordinator of Harvard's Center for Health Promotion, whose mission is to develop, implement, and evaluate health promotion/disease prevention programs for HSPH faculty, staff, and students.

AEA member Kelly Hannum is the recent recipient of the University of North Carolina Greensboro's Young Alumni Award, presented to alumni who are 40 years of age and younger, and which recognizes exceptional achievement and significant contribution to the recipient's profession or community, society or the university. Hannum, also the 2008 recipient of AEA's Guttentag Award, is the manager of research at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro.  She has served as a consultant to NASA, a senior leadership expert with The World Bank, a visiting faculty member at Catholic University in Lille, France, and has been an adjunct member of the UNCG faculty since 2004. Congratulations Kelly! For more information, see http://www.uncg.edu/ure/news/stories/2009/apr/ServiceAwards040309.htm

 

What's new this month in the AEA Online Career Center? The following positions and Requests for Proposals (RFPs) have been added recently:

Descriptions for each of these positions, and many others, are available in the AEA Online Career Center. According to Google analytics, the Career Center received over 4000 unique visitors in the past month. It is an outstanding resource for posting your resume or position, or for finding your next employer, contractor or employee.
 
Job hunting? You can also sign up to receive notifications of new position postings via email or RSS feed.
 
Go to the AEA Online Career Center

As AEA's representative to the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation, I attended the Perspectives on Impact Evaluation: Approaches to Assessing Development Effectiveness international conference in Cairo, March 29 to April 2. Over 600 delegates, many from developing countries, participated in the multi-faceted professional conference. Organized by 3ie (International Initiative for Impact Evaluation), NONIE (the Network Of Networks for Impact Evaluation) and AfrEA (the African Evaluation Association), with support from UNICEF, the purpose for this conference was "to bring to Africa some of the best expertise from all continents on one of the most discussed topics among evaluation and development communities worldwide." The organizers defined impact evaluation as "those studies which concern themselves with determining and understanding the short, medium and long term outcomes or impacts of projects, programs and policies," noting, "we do not limit the term to any specific methodology in any particular discipline."
 
Ahmed Ag Aboubacrine who works with CARE in Sierra Leone shared highlights from the conference, among them:

One of my take-homes from the conference is a matrix Patricia Rogers uses that categorizes impact evaluations that deal with simple, complicated or complex situations. This has important implications for the kinds of questions that can be addressed and the evaluation designs and methodologies that are appropriate. I will be sharing a bit more about this next month.
 
Why should all of this matter to AEA members? The discourse added to the ongoing methodological debates and one could leave it at that. However, there are significant policy and resource-allocation implications when major donors and networks establish guidelines and set the expectations for what should be accepted as rigorous impact evaluation. See in particular the impact evaluation guidelines that were officially adopted by NONIE during the Cairo conference. With AEA's focus on encouraging policies that are relevant to good evaluation practice, we should be aware that key stakeholders will be making policy decisions based on the outcomes of the event. These include 3ie and the three donor networks that are part of NONIE: the OECD-DAC (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development-Development Assistance Committee) Evaluation Network, the United Nations Evaluation Group, and the World Bank's Evaluation Cooperation Group. 
 
Go to the Cairo Conference website

AEA member James Dudley has authored a new book published by Lyceum Books, Inc. Social Work Evaluation: Enhancing What We Do presents evaluation as a collaborative effort and encourages the participation of clients, community groups, and staff members in all or some of the steps of the evaluation process. 

From the Publisher's Site:
"Evaluation is a necessary and important element of social work. The role of the evaluator is one that all social workers should undertake-through program evaluation or through evaluation of one's individual practice-to ensure that practice methods attain the highest possible effectiveness. This book provides a comprehensive and readable approach to evaluation, emphasizing various small and mid-range formative evaluations that are often implemented at the local agency level. Social Work Evaluation: Enhancing What We Do can help all social workers improve their practice outcomes."

From the Author:
"My students over they years have urged me to write my own book as a reflection of what I cover in my classes so I finally did that. One of the distinguishing aspects of this book is its extensive use of case examples and visual aids. Discussion questions in every chapter, visual aids, a glossary of terms, and role play and other exercises are also included. It has been most rewarding to complete a book that reflects my 15-plus years of communicating the extreme importance of evaluation and that evaluation activities are a central aspect of program and practice interventions." 

About the Author:
James R. Dudley is professor of social work at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he has served as chair of the social work department. Previously, he was a faculty member at Temple University. He has conducted numerous evaluations and other research studies and published several articles and books including Research Methods for Social Work.

 

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