2016 Volume 16 Issue 1 Pages 27-37
The authors are working on promoting a culture of evaluation among nonprofits in Japan with the message that evaluation can be a powerful tool for civil society organizations (CSOs) to increase learning and effectiveness in solving social issues. From this perspective, there are two global trends that are currently worth exploring. One is the five-year Global Evaluation Agenda, which was adopted in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in which there is a call to action to strengthen evaluation capacities at the country level including Voluntary Organization of Professional Evaluators (VOPEs) and CSOs. The other is the so-called “the fifth wave” of evaluation, which stems from a diversification of evaluation stakeholders that includes social investors as well as dynamic and emergent operating contexts where change is the only constant and evaluation needs to be value-driven. With these trends in mind, the authors highlight the growing attention to “developmental evaluation” in the evaluation community as a useful approach to monitor and support social innovation in complex environments.
