Written by: EnCompass Staff

EnCompass is proud to be an institutional partner for UNFPA’s Eval4Action campaign, contributing to global evaluation capacity and evaluation’s role in sustainable development. Tessie Catsambas, our CEO/CFO, has been instrumental in helping to shape the campaign. Eval4Action calls participants to demonstrate their support for the Sustainable Development Goals by committing to actions that accelerate capacity and the use of evaluation in policymaking.

Tessie Catsambas emphasized the link between Eval4Action and EnCompass’ core values, saying, “At EnCompass, we believe design, learning, and evaluation are successful when they are inclusive, respectful, and methodologically sound, accompanying leaders and implementers in a lifelong journey of transformation toward equitable and thriving communities everywhere. The Eval4Action Campaign, with its commitment to the SDGs, ignites our imagination and invites us into a global coalition for action. This is why EnCompass has volunteered significant resources to support the Campaign.”

As a companion to the United Nations’ Decade of Action, Eval4Action is focusing on virtual consultations and social media activities that garner commitments from organizations and policymakers to strengthen evaluation capacity and utilization. Since launching in early 2020, #Eval4Action has hosted Twitter chats, a Global Marathon of Engagement in June, and consultations in the Middle East and North Africa and Asia Pacific regions.

EnCompass co-hosted the Global Marathon with UNFPA, with 174 participants from all over the world, extensive engagement on Twitter, and some 65 speakers, including UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem and the United Nations Director-General’s Youth Envoy, Jayathama Wickramanayake. They spoke passionately about inclusion of women and girls, LGBTIQ issues, and racial equity. EnCompass’ President, Michelle DeFayette, gave the closing speech.

As an institutional partner, EnCompass joins global, regional, and country-level organizations such as the African Evaluation Association, the World Food Programme, and EvalYouth LAC. As a volunteer, we are facilitating and supporting the production of Eval4Action’s virtual consultations. And, as part of our commitment to accelerating evaluation capacity, our EnCompass Learning Center has partnered with EvalYouth to offer tuition-free spots in several of our courses. We are deeply grateful to instructor Donna Podems for adding her own commitment to provide mentoring for these participants as a follow-up to the Being an Evaluator course running in August 2020.

Beeta Tahmassebi, who leads the ELC on behalf of EnCompass, said, “We launched the EnCompass Learning Center in order to provide high-quality, interactive online learning programs to professionals working toward organizational effectiveness and social change around the world. Partnering with EvalYouth in service of young and emerging evaluators is a reflection of our deep commitment to accessibility, inclusion, and a desire to help build a better tomorrow.”

As the campaign continues, EnCompass will be sharing news about the campaign and more information about our organization’s commitments on our Twitter feed, @EnCompass_World. What are your personal or organizational commitments to evaluation action for sustainable development? Please share your stories in the comments below.

We also invite you to join Eval4Action by signing up for the campaign newsletter and using the hashtag #Eval4Action to join the discussion.