Evaluation Capacity Development: Online Course on Evaluation Management
Focelac+ attempts to fill the gap of training courses addressing evaluation managers in Latin America.
Although Latin America has a wide range of evaluation training programs, few directly address the training of evaluation managers. Focelac+ attempts to fill this gap and has now launched an online course on evaluation management. The course is a product of the partnership between the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso), Costa Rica headquarters, and DEval. It is based on a course developed by the Costa Rican Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy (Mideplan) and the Foceval project and was adapted to an online format.
Training evaluation managers is of high importance since the quality of an evaluation is not guaranteed by having a good evaluation team. It is also integral to have a good management team that has the capacity to make critical decisions at all stages of the evaluation process.
New online format
The proposal to take the course on evaluation management to the virtual space is based on the interest of reaching professionals from Latin America, opening the possibility of training officials from the region, and thus achieving the dissemination of evaluation capacities. In addition, virtual courses are especially relevant in times of pandemic, in which confinement and working from home continue to be a priority. Thus, virtual training enables evaluation managers to visualize alternative formats for managing and carrying out quality evaluations.
The course will be piloted until September of this year, with a group of key actors in the region, who will provide feedback on both the content and the fluidity of the virtual platform to ensure that the course is of the highest quality.