Local voices, lasting impact: Rethinking our practice for a future driven by locally led & community driven evaluations

Too often, evaluations are driven by a non-local agenda – but local stakeholders hold the deepest insights into what works and what is most relevant. This session dives into the practice of locally led evaluations where power shifts closer to affected communities.

Participants will come away with a conceptual framework that grounds locally led evaluation in key principles, maps evaluation stakeholder groups and outlines practical steps to shift your approach.  We will share practical examples of local and community-driven strategies that challenge traditional evaluation practices.

We’ll spotlight the CoLMEAL (Community-Led MEAL) approach—a powerful model that puts communities in the driver’s seat, with local people leading every step of the process: from assessment and design to collecting, analysing, using, and sharing data on their own terms.

Wherever you are on the spectrum of locally led evaluation, and whether you are an evaluator, commissioner or funder, this session will spark conversations, ideas and action to advance locally led evaluation and broaden your ideas about community-led development. Join us to rethink who evaluates, how and why.

Speakers:

• Jakub Nemec | Executive Director, Salanga
• Kassem El Saddik | Senior evaluation advisor & co-founder -360 Consulting
• Hana Abul Husn | Senior research fellow, ALNAP

This event is part of the Glocal Evaluation Week- a unique knowledge-sharing event, connecting a global community of people across sectors and regions.