Strengthening Evaluation Capacities with a Global Outlook
The German development cooperation project, Strengthening a Culture of Evaluation and Learning in Latin America with a Global Outlook (Focelac+), builds on an effort that has been gaining force for years, initially implemented by the German Society for International Cooperation GIZ (2011-2014), followed by the German Institute for Development Evaluation DEval (2015-2022), with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Its creation was managed from Costa Rica, with the Ministry for National Planning and Economic Policy (Mideplan) acting as strategic partner and project implementer all these years.
The project has evolved, going through several phases: Foceval, Foceval II, Foceval III, and Focelac, and was finally incorporated in 2021 as Focelac+, when it expanded its area of influence to other regions beyond Latin America and the Caribbean.
Our Goals
The aim of Focelac+ is to ensure that evaluations in individual countries (particularly in Latin America but also with a view to other regions, specially Anglophone Africa) enhance their contribution to accountability, transparency, and learning, strengthening good governance as a requirement to meet the 2030 Agenda championed by the United Nations (UN).
Our Strategy
To fulfill this objective, Focelac+ works in close collaboration with different partner agencies at global level who are also working to strengthen evaluation capacity. One is the recently created Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI), that will become the entry door to engage beyond the Latin American region.
Our Activities
This stage was spent working on the creation of innovative evaluation capacity development (ECD) formats to share the experiences with a wide range of interested bodies. Some of these formats include
- An online course on evaluation management
- An update workshop on using evaluation criteria
- Support to the National Evaluation Platform in Ecuador
- Promoting SDG evaluations within the framework of the 2030 Agenda
- National Evaluation Capacities Index (INCE, for its acronym in Spanish)
- Support to YEEs’ participation in evaluation processes
- Support to ReLAC
- Promoting inclusive evaluation approaches (EvalParticipativa)
- Promoting participation in evaluation processes
