Bagele Chilisa is a full Professor of the Post Graduate Research and Evaluation Program at the University of Botswana. She has a doctoral degree in Policy Planning and Evaluation from the University of Pittsburgh (USA), and served as evaluator for notable projects such as: Netherlands WOTRO Science for Global Development’s Joint MFS II Evaluations of Development Interventions (2012-2015); the AfDB’s Evaluation of the African Development Bank Assistance to Botswana 2004-2013; and an evaluation of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Programme for the South African National Research Foundation. The author of the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) concept paper on a Made in Africa Evaluation Approach, Bagele is an African thought leader driving the concept of African-rooted evaluation. She has conducted evaluation research for DFID, FAWE, UNICEF, UNDP, WHO, UNESCO, Economic Commission for Africa, World Bank, and ILO. Recent publications include: Indigenous Research Methodologies second edition (2019); Mixed Methods in Indigenous Research: Building Relationships for Sustainable Intervention Outcomes (2014); Decolonising Trans-disciplinary Research: An African Perspective for enhancing knowledge integration in Sustainability Science (2017); Community Engagement with a post-colonial, African based relational paradigm (2017); and Decolonizing and Indigenizing Evaluation Practice in Africa: Toward African Relational Evaluation Approaches (2016). Chilisa, B., & Mertens, D. M. (2021). Indigenous made in Africa evaluation frameworks: Addressing epistemic violence and contributing to social transformation. American Journal of Evaluation, 42(2), 241-253. Chilisa B & Bowman N. (2023 Eds) Decolonizing Evaluation: Towards a Fifth Paradigm, JMDE Special issue. Veda & Chilisa B., (2023) The Commitment Mural: Let’s Decolonize Evaluation Together, Journal of Multidisciplinary Evaluation
Ramya Ramanath
Dr. Ramya Ramanath is Associate Professor and Chair of the International Public Service degree program at DePaul University's School of Public Service in Chicago, USA. She teaches graduate courses on sustainable international development, policy implementation, cross-sector relations, and management of international NGOs. Her publications—in urban resettlement & rehabilitation, program evaluation, NGO-government relations, and nonprofit capacity building—draw on perspectives in organizational behavior, urban sociology, planning, anthropology, and political science. In her 2019 book, A Place to Call Home: Women as Agents of Change in Mumbai, Ramanath foregrounds experiences of a diverse group of 120 women displaced from the slums of Mumbai and resettled in high-rise public housing to show how a history of tumultuous urban planning decisions can help and hinder an under-heeded population of those who call the city home. Most recently, she is collaborating with the Indian Housing Federation on research which will reveal and nuance the voices, perspectives, and experiences of multiple small private developers operating in Chennai's peri-urban frontiers.
Nurul Alam
Mr. Mohammad Nurul Alam was educated at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and Harvard University, USA. Mr. Alam started his professional career in 1975 as an International Civil Servant with UNDP. He held successive senior management positions in UNDP country representations in Afghanistan, Malaysia and Singapore, Indonesia, and in UNDP Reginal office for Pacific Island Countries in Fiji.
As the Deputy Director of IEO (1998-2009), he was in the forefront of ushering UNDP’s new evaluation practice in the new millennia, including formulation of the first ‘Evaluation Policy’ (2006) for the IEO, the first ‘Results Based Monitoring and Evaluation Handbook’, and introducing the new generation of ‘Country Programme Evaluations’ titled as ‘Assessment of Development Results (ADRs). He led and managed over twenty corporate and country programme evaluations during his tenure in IEO.
He served as the first Executive Coordinator of UN Evaluation group (1999-2009), represented UNDP at the OECD/DAC Evaluation Network, Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG) of Multilateral Development Banks. He served as a Board Member of the International Development Evaluation Association IDEAS (2011-14).
He is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University in New York since 2010. As a practicing development consultant, he provided advisory consulting services to a host of multilateral organizations including the UNDP, UN ITC, IFAD, FAO, UNEG, Islamic Development Bank (IDB), and the New Development Bank (BRICS).
Osvaldo Néstor Feinstein
Osvaldo Néstor Feinstein is professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid’s Master in the Evaluation of Programs and Public Policies, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Colorni-Hirschman International Institute. He is the editor of the Transaction World Bank Series on Evaluation & Development, having published and edited articles and books on evaluation, development and economics in academic and professional journals. He was a manager and advisor at the World Bank independent evaluation department, a senior evaluator at the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and an evaluation consultant for several international organizations such as GEF, UNDP, CGIAR, IADB, AFDB, CDB, FAO, IICA, IDRC, UNEG, ILO, GCF, CLEAR-AA, CEPAL, ILPES and UNESCO. He provided technical assistance to governments in Latin American and Caribbean countries, as well as in Asia and Africa, Eastern Europe, and Spain. He also lectured and conducted workshops at Latin American, British, Finnish, Chinese, Indian, Korean, Italian, and Spanish universities, government organizations, and research centers on evaluation, development and performance measurement. Osvaldo was a professor at the Master in Development Studies of the Latin American Faculty for the Social Sciences (FLACSO), and designed the Latin American Program for the Development of Evaluation Capacities (PREVAL).
Claudia Maldonado Trujillo
Claudia Maldonado Trujillo is a Professor-Researcher at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico. She holds a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame and a Master´s Degree in Public Affairs from Princeton University. Her research focuses on program evaluation, capacity-building in evaluation, the politics of evidence-based policy and comparative public policy. In the last decade, she has taught graduate and undergraduate course in program evaluation and trained public servants, academics, practitioners and civil society leaders in program evaluation and the logic of evidence-based public policy in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Panama and Uruguay. She was the founding Director of the CLEAR Center for Latin America and the Caribbean, coordinates the Center´s Diploma on Public Policy and Evaluation since 2012 and has performed social program evaluations since 1998. She has advised government agencies and social organizations on M&E both nationally and internationally. She is the author and coordinator of several publications about the use of evaluation (Cejudo & Maldonado 2011); the development strategies of Brazil and Mexico in comparative perspective (Magaldi & Maldonado 2014); the emergence of evaluation as a discipline (Maldonado & Pérez Yarahuán 2015) and the state of the art of national evaluation systems in Latin America (Pérez-Yarahuán & Maldonado 2016), among others
Gilberto Flores
Gilberto Flores is an Independent Consultant in International Development. In that capacity, he has worked for UNDP, FAO, and UNOPS. He was Executive Director a.i. of UNOPS. He served as Deputy Regional Director for Latin America & the Caribbean UNDP. Among other issues he oversaw the effectiveness of the program in the region. Previously he was Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Argentina, Special Coordinator for Resource Mobilization at the Regional Bureau for Asia Pacific, Director Country Program Division at RBLAC, and Director Division for Institutional Development at the Office for Project Services, UNDP. He also served as Chief Technical Advisor of a United Nations regional project that supported the Central American Institute for Public Administration (ICAP). Among other achievements the project helped ICAP to launch a Master’s degree program that obtained international recognition. Worked for a Management Consulting firm. He was Director of the North America Office of the Chilean Copper Corporation. Earlier in his career he was a full-time professor and later served as Director of the Department of Public Administration of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Chile. He has published several articles in academic journals and edited a book in Public Sector Management.
Thomas A. Schwandt
Thomas A. Schwandt is Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; editor emeritus of the American Journal of Evaluation; member, editorial board of Evaluation: The International Journal of Theory, Research & Practice; and member of the EVALSDGs network of researchers, evaluators, and policymakers committed to developing the role of evaluation in the achievement of the SDGs. In recent years his research has been focused on evidence-based reasoning and data-driven decision making. His books include Evaluation Foundations Revisited: Cultivating a Life of the Mind for Practice (Stanford University Press, 2015); Evaluation Practice Reconsidered (Peter Lang, 2002); Evaluating Holistic Rehabilitation Practice (Kommuneforlaget AS, 2004); Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry (4th ed. Sage, 2015); with Edward Halpern, Linking Auditing and Meta-evaluation (Sage, 1988); and, with Ken Prewitt and Miron Straf, Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy (National Academies Press, 2012). He has co-edited Exploring Evaluator Role and Identity (with K. Ryan, Information Age Press, 2002) and Evaluating Educational Reforms: Scandinavian Perspectives (with P. Haug, Information Age Press, 2003). In 2002, he received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award from the American Evaluation Association for his contributions to evaluation theory.
The Director of the Independent Evaluation Office has appointed an International Evaluation Advisory Panel (IEAP) to provide periodic advice on evaluation strategies, plans, methodologies and deliverables. It consists of eminent evaluation experts and scholars from around the world.
Audit and Evaluation Advisory Committee (AEAC)
The purpose of the Audit and Evaluation Advisory Committee (AEAC) is to assist the Administrator in fulfilling his/her
responsiblity regarding responsibilities regarding oversight, financial management and reporting, internal audit and
investigation, external audit, risk management, the evaluation and ethics functions and systems of internal control and
accountability.
The Independent Evaluation Office has participated in peer reviews conducted by independent professionals in the field
of evaluation. The reviews provide an assessment of independence, credibility and utility of
the evaluation function and provide recommendations to the Independent Evaluation Office and the Executive Board of
UNDP.
