Last week, Hope Kabuchu gave the latest presentation in the Kampala Evaluation Talk series, The Space for National Evaluators in the Global Evaluation: Challenges, Lessons and Opportunities for National Evaluators, in which she shared her experiences as an evaluator, both in Uganda and internationally, offering guidance to fellow and budding national evaluators alike.
The audience was taken through the current donor climate and global trends in evaluations, with an emphasis on how these apply to the evaluator in Uganda. Ms. Kabuchu went on to explore the challenges for national evaluators and provided lessons learned from her own experiences. Such as, for example, a comparison of the role of internationals with that of national evaluators, and advice on how to navigate potentially complex relationships between the two. The talk closed with an outline of the opportunities open to national evaluators and commissioners, and guidance on how best to approach these.
Three key lessons emerged from Ms. Kabuchu’s presentation that can assist national evaluators in improving their practice and becoming more competitive both nationally and internationally:
- Keep up-to-date and adapt to the continuous changes in the global evaluation and donor arenas.
- “Know your donor”, i.e. the unique requirements with regards to tenders, evaluation practice, and so on.
- Build an international network to increase job opportunities in Uganda and overseas.
The talk was very well-received, especially Ms. Kabuchu’s use of anecdotes and personal experiences, and her presentation was followed by a lively discussion amongst the practitioners, lecturers and students present.
Hope Kabuchu is a Senior Consultant in Social Development with a specialisation in evaluation, and contributes actively to the work of the ECD Project.
Evaluation Capacity Development 