This is a first-of-its-kind collection of writings by evaluation professionals working in South Asia.
It analyses and documents the status of, and challenges for, development evaluation in this region.
The collection covers three critical dimensions of making evaluation matter in development processes and change in South Asia: context, methods, and use. The chapters draw on a depth of experience from evaluators in several countries in South Asia to explore how the context in South Asia influences the methods that are appropriate for evaluating policies, programs and projects in this context, and the challenges to having evaluation findings used to influence and bring about change.
-Range, Shubh Kumar: - Shubh Kumar-Range is currently leading the gender and food security integration in agricultural policy for United States Agency for International Development/Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (USAID/VOCA's) support to the Government of Ethiopia's Agricultural Growth Program. She has been actively involved in the Community of Evaluators for South Asia and its strategic development since 2008. She has conducted a large number of strategic, policy, and programme evaluations focused largely on poverty, nutrition, and food security. Earlier, between 1978 and 1995, she conducted path-breaking research with the International Food Policy Research Institute, establishing the significance of women's income and their role in decision-making for improving household welfare parameters, including food security and child nutrition. She has written and published extensively on these issues, and many of her writings have been used as reference material in leading universities around the world, including the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Hay, Katherine Eve: - Katherine Eve Hay leads the monitoring, learning, and evaluation function for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in India. This leadership role involves decision-making on evaluations, fostering outcome-focused investments, and promoting evidence-based programming. Katherine is the strategic lead on foundation evaluations of programmes in both Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with decision-making responsibilities for evaluation design, strengthening grantee organizations' monitoring and evaluation (ME) systems, and use of real-time monitoring data and evaluation findings. Her responsibilities include ensuring the technical and pragmatic quality of the foundation's evaluation work in India, using evidence for decision-making, and ensuring an engagement model that supports foundation grantees and programme officers to design robust, outcome-driven grants. Katherine brings a strong gender and equity focus to her work. She is a member of the Adolescent Girls working group at the Gates Foundation and has focused extensively on women's empowerment and gender equity throughout her career. Katherine has written on women's empowerment, feminist evaluation, and evaluation capacity building. Prior to joining the Gates Foundation, she worked at the International Development Research Centre in New Delhi. Katherine has supported many funders and organizations in setting up gender- and equity-oriented evaluations and systems. She has recently agreed to serve on the joint UN Women Global Evaluation Committee.
