The Grants Lab: Sharing Lessons on SDG Monitoring Capacities

Thursday 8th December 2022 / 14 to 15:30h CET / Digital event

Sharing knowledge and learning collaboratively makes every effort stronger.

In the past years, AVANTI and other grants/ initiatives have identified valuable lessons learned from the work done, and at this event, through a dynamic talkshow with key guests, we will explore these lessons, particularly around data (use, generation, methodologies, harmonization), leadership and ownership in RBM processes, financial targeting (for capacity building at national/local levels along the data value chain), and more.

At this event, AVANTI will also present its flagship publication: a knowledge product that highlights key insights and lessons learnt of this grant in the recent years around the world.

Join us!

Language disclaimer: the facilitation language of the event will be English, but participants are welcome to post questions in other languages through the chat.

Program

	14:00 – 14:10h CET Welcome & Check-in to The Grants Lab
	14:10 – 14:30 h CET Launch: AVANTI Flagship Publication by Dr. Abdulkareem Lawal, AG-Scan country team Lead, Principal Consultant, Itad
	14:30 – 15:20 h CET Talkshow: What different initiatives and grants learned about RBM and data use: in this talkshow we will explore these lessons, particularly around data (use, generation, methodologies, harmonization), leadership and ownership in RBM processes, financial targeting (for capacity building at national/local levels along the data value chain), and more. Speakers: – Ms. Ethel Sibanda, AG-Scan methodology Lead, Principal Consultant, Itad – Ms. Renata Mirulla, Facilitator, EvalForward CoP, Policy Officer, FAO – Professor Ian Goldman, President: International Evaluation Academy, Advisor on Evaluation and Evidence Systems, Global Evaluation Initiative/CLEAR Anglophone Africa, Former Deputy Director General in the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, South Africa 15:20 – 15:30 CET Closing remarks & outlook Moderator: Dr. Riff Fullan, AVANTI Knowledge Lead, Head, Learning and Innovation, Helvetas

Speakers Bio

Dr. Riff Fullan has worked in development cooperation as a knowledge and learning specialist for 30 years. In addition to supporting global and regional multistakeholder knowledge partnerships, Riff has worked closely with projects and programs in various countries in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, as a thematic advisor, coach and evaluator. Riff has led the evolution of the organization’s orientation to knowledge management since joining Helvetas in 2006, and has authored successive knowledge and learning strategies, think pieces, manuals and guides. As the Head of Learning & Innovation, Riff steers a group of professionals in support of Helvetas’ collaborative culture, through provision of advice and services to internal and external clients on the use of virtual and face-to-face methods, tools and approaches to maximize learning, innovation and knowledge sharing.

Ian is an International Advisor on Evaluation and Evidence Systems, President of the International Evaluation Academy and an Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town. He worked in the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, South Africa, where he established and ran the National Evaluation System to 2018 and was a founder of the Twende Mbele African M&E Partnership. Since 2018 Ian has been researching, training and consulting internationally in evidence use and evaluation systems. He works with the Global Evaluation Initiative, CLEAR Anglophone Africa, and is on the 3ie, International Evaluation Academy and South African M&E Association Boards.

Dr Abdulkareem Lawal is social scientist and monitoring and evaluation expert with over thirty years’ experience in international development and 20 years working in Monitoring and Evaluation. Abdulkareem started his career as an agricultural research scientist and has built up a significant portfolio as an evaluation specialist; and helps international development organisations, governments, civil society, and communities, to assess the impact of their work, and to learn and improve their performance. He brings wide-ranging expertise in all types of evaluations; results and performance assessments; as well as strategy advice and analysis.

Renata Mirulla facilitates EvalForward, a Community of Practice on Evaluation for evaluation in agriculture, food security and rural development jointly supported by the evaluation offices of FAO, IFAD and WFP. In this role, she supports knowledge sharing and capacity development, highlighting good practices and contributing to enhance the role of evaluation in decision-making. Prior to joining evaluation, she worked as a policy officer at the Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) in FAO, and earlier on as a consultant on sustainability and environmental issues at the Italian Ministry of Environment and in private research institutes. She holds a master’s degree in political sciences from Università La Sapienza, Rome.

Dr. Kai Schrader has 30 years of experience working in the development sector focusing on participatory approaches for M&E, project planning, and impact evaluation. He has worked for sustainable rural development projects in Central America and has short term consultancy experiences in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. In 2013, he joined Helvetas’ Learning & Innovation Team to strengthen RBM capacities of Helvetas’ country teams and facilitate multi-stakeholder exchanges for public and private clients, as well as implementing trainings, developing methods and tools, and designing overall approaches and concepts. Since 2018, he has been Team Lead of IFAD’s AVANTI initiative and since this year of IFAD’s SUSTAIN: Strengthening Borrowers’ Capacity on Environmental, Social and Climate Best Practices.

Ethel Sibanda is a Principal Consultant at Itad Ltd and the AG-Scan methodology lead for AVANTI. She has close to 20 years’ experience working in international development on Strategy, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning. Her sectoral expertise and experience includes the fields of agriculture, climate change, food and nutrition security, HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health rights. Ethel has vast experience working with funders, national governments, NGOs and Community Based Organisations in enhancing monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) uptake, strengthening data generation and use and strategy design. Her experience ranges from strategy evaluations and strategy formulation to national-level food security and vulnerability assessments including data driven famine early warning systems. She has extensive grassroots level experience in crop surveys, household quasi-experimental agriculture and livelihoods surveys as well as multi-country strategy formulation and revision. Her strategy and MEL expertise includes Theory of Change development, strategy evaluations, process evaluations, organisational effectiveness evaluations; outcome and impact evaluations; policy and advocacy evaluations, and capacity building in results-based management.