EvalParticipativa: A Community of Practice and Learning of Participatory Evaluation in the Latin America and the Caribbean Pandemic Context

RODRÍGUEZ BILELLA, PABLO; TAPELLA, ESTEBAN; SANZ, JUAN CARLOS

The Oxford Handbook of Program Evaluation in the Global South

Oxford University Press

Año: 2023;

The COVID 19 pandemic has exacerbated the gap felt by the most vulnerable collectives especially hit by the crisis. In most cases, the state has been unable to offer an efficient response when faced with the abyss of poverty and inequality encountered especially in the Global South. In this context, participatory evaluation functions as an approach that enables programmes to be reviewed and improved from a local perspective, opening up new spaces for understanding and dialogue, deemed particularly necessary in pandemic times. This chapter presents the case of EvalParticipativa, an original initiative created in 2019 with the aim of identifying, critically analysing and learning from participatory evaluation experiences generated in Latin America and the Caribbean. To this effect, it gives an account of the participatory traditions rooted in the region that paved the way for its development and birthing the First Gathering of Participatory Evaluation Experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean. The chapter presents and discusses the key principles of participatory evaluation that have been developed by the EvalParticipativa initiative based on several experiences of this approach in the region. Finally, in order to illuminate the research agenda around this topic, the possibilities and limitations detected by EvalParticipativa in terms of strengthening the participatory approach in evaluation in Latin America and the Caribbean are discussed.