Rewiring the Evaluation Marketplace for a Changing World
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Abstract
This issue of JMDE asks how evaluation should respond to the transformational imperative to contribute to the radical changes essential for a regenerative, socially just, and equitable future for humanity and the planet. We posit that if the evaluation marketplace was reconfigured to respond to the current realities of global development it could drive innovation and position evaluation to be more dynamic, innovative and influential. Our view is that evaluation in its current form is not fit for this task. Without fundamental change it risks becoming irrelevant in a rapidly transforming global development system. Drawing on our experience across international development, development economics and philanthropy, and our current work in rethinking development and evaluation, we examine the emerging contours of a reconfigured global development system and ask how the evaluation marketplace must evolve to remain influential and relevant. We focus on the evaluation marketplace because it remains an overlooked part of evaluation infrastructure and under-examined relative to methods and theory, yet it powerfully shapes both. The evaluation marketplace can either hold our field back or stimulate innovation to respond to the polycrisis and a reconfigured global development agenda.
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