Mainstreaming ecosystem health, and equity lens into all evaluations

Fellow and former President of Canadian Evaluation Society and recipient of the Society’s award for Contribution to Evaluation in Canada with over thirty-five years conducting evaluations in a wide range of natural resource and human settings now focusing on sustainability and climate.

Dr. Rowe has published extensively on developing a focus and capacity for evaluating sustainability, led the Canadian Evaluation Society assessment of a sustainability-ready evaluation capacity, is a founding member of Footprint established on the premise that all evaluations should include consideration of environmental sustainability. He has also developed a new approach for evaluating impacts (Rapid Impact Evaluation), for use-seeking assessments and for assessing net environmental impacts of an intervention. Andy served on the initial Technical Evaluation Reference Group of the Adaptation Fund. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Dr. Jane Davidson is an internationally recognized evaluation specialist, best known for developing evaluation rubrics as a methodology for drawing conclusions about quality and value. She has also made significant contributions in the areas of causal inference for qualitative and mixed methods, and in synthesis methodologies for evaluation. Jane is former Associate Director of the internationally recognized Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University, where she launched and directed the world’s first fully Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Evaluation. She was the 2019 recipient of the American Evaluation Association’s prestigious Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award.

Mexican evaluator, she has conducted evaluations within the Performance Evaluation System of federal and subnational programmes. Experience in prospective (design) and implementation (process) evaluations with emphasis on two areas of economic and social infrastructure and evaluation of social programmes, with participatory methodologies.

Kassem El Saddik is a Learning and Evaluation Advisor. With more than 20 years of experience, Kassem has led various evaluations of complex development and humanitarian programs, particularly in conflict-affected and fragile states. He is credited for being at the forefront of global evaluation networks promoting the evaluation of the 2030 Agenda. Kassem is a founding member of EVALSDGs, EVALMENA, served on board of several Evaluation Reference Groups (SDG 5 Evaluation Synthesis) and ALNAP Advisory Group. He has co-authored series of Policy Briefs and a guidebook on evaluating the SDGs, led EvalPartner’s flagship programs granting VOPEs to institutionalize national evaluation capacities. Kassem is currently coordinating EvalPartners’ Global Forum for Evaluation (GEF) 2024.

Sonal has over 30 years’ experience in strategic planning, program design, capacity building, mentoring and evaluation. Sonal’s interests relate to how rights, inclusion, local wisdom and gender are addressed across complex human and natural ecosystems. She has co-designed evaluation principles and adapted evaluation approaches that address participation, transformation, decolonisation and feminist thought that challenge evaluation thinking and practice. She is based in India.