Evaluation and the Transformational Imperative - An Introduction to a Special Volume

Abstract

A decade into the UN’s 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, an agenda explicitly designed to catalyze transformational change, “transformation” has become something of a buzzword in the development lexicon. Yet with less than 5 years remaining on the Agenda’s timeline, the imperative to move beyond business-as-usual has never been more pressing. The converging crises of ecological breakdown, deepening inequality, political instability, and rapid technological disruption are accelerating faster than systems can adapt and maintain stability, giving rise to another buzzword in the industry: the polycrisis. The gap between the rhetoric of transformation and its practice remains, but the consequences of that gap have never been more severe for people, for ecosystems, and for the planet.