From the Big Picture to Detailed Observation: The Case of the GEF IEO’s Strategic Country Cluster Evaluations

This chapter introduces strategic country cluster evaluations (SCCEs), a concrete example of how the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has dealt with the increasing complexity of GEF programming. This complexity reflects the interconnectedness—in terms of both synergies and trade-offs—between socioeconomic development priorities and environment conservation imperatives that is typical of many country settings in which GEF projects and programs are implemented, such as least developed countries and small island developing states. SCCEs address this complexity by applying a purposive evaluative inquiry approach that starts from aggregate analyses designed to provide trends and identify cases of positive, neutral, or negative change, and proceeds to in-depth data gathering aimed at identifying the specific factors underlying the observed change in those specific cases. By establishing the interconnectedness and sequencing of the various evaluation components, rather than conducting these in parallel, SCCEs provide an opportunity to focus on a limited set of purposively selected issues that are common in clusters of countries and/or portfolios. This enables a comprehensive understanding of the factors at play in complex national and local settings.

The Virus Covid-19 and Dilemmas of Online Technology

Commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic must necessarily consider the medical issues in social and political context. This paper discusses one important dimension of the context, the long-term history of human activity as intrinsically technological in its nature. The pandemic has accelerated the use of technology to mediate relations between people “at a distance”. This involves not only a change in the skills people have (though acquiring these skills has become the central project of work for many people), but changes the sort of person they are. Our notions of “closeness” and “distance”, or of “touching” and “being touched”, and so on, refer simultaneously to states that are spatial and emotional, factual and evaluative. Inquiry into the differences in human relations where there is physical presence and where there is not raises very significant questions. What are the differences and why are they thought, and felt, to matter? What are the differences when the relationship is supposed to be a therapeutic one? What are the financial and political interests at work in enforcing relations at a distance by new media, i.e., “mediated” relations? How is a person’s agency affected by a lack of freedom to move or a lack of face-to-face contact? What happens to all those human relations for which physical presence was previously the norm, relations such as those performed in the rituals of birth, marriage and death, or in activities like sport and the arts? Can it be said that new technologies involve a “loss of soul”? The present paper seeks to provide a reflective and open-ended framework for asking such questions.

Policy labs: the next frontier of policy design and evaluation?

The article explores the potential benefits to public policy of combining traditional evaluative inquiry with insights developed dynamically in policy labs. Twenty leading labs from five continents are critically analysed through a literature review as well as policy and programme evaluation practices, assessing the extent to which the purpose, structures and processes used in policy labs address three challenges: (1) establishing the causality and value of public interventions, (2) explaining mechanisms of change, and (3) utilising research findings in public policy. The article concludes that creating synergies between evaluation inquiry and policy labs can improve the design and implementation of public policy and programmes.

Pathways to women’s empowerment in Bangladesh

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine two interventions toward women’s empowerment in Bangladesh – formal employment and microfinance, and to highlight two case studies supporting these interventions. Design/methodology/approach This interpretive-evaluative inquiry of the state of employment and microfinance as important interventions in women’s empowerment in Bangladesh is based on both primary and secondary sources. Theoretical insights and empirical evidence from previous research along with data from various sources inform the arguments. Findings Bangladeshi women are making steady progress toward empowerment through a gradual increase in female participation in the workforce, especially in the ready-made garment manufacturing sector. The expanding microfinance arena has also been providing a growing number of women the opportunity to undertake productive small-scale business ventures that also provide informal employment to unemployed women in rural areas. However, social and cultural constraints and overt conservatism has been a daunting challenge for enterprising women and those in formal employment continue to suffer from discrimination, harassment and unfavorable working conditions. Originality/value The paper will be of value to both researchers and policy makers in Bangladesh as it seeks to relate two specific interventions toward women’s empowerment from a broad conceptual perspective and interpretive analysis.

QUESTIONING TECHNIQUES AND HIGH ORDER THINGKING IN STUDENTS LEARNING GROUP

Questioning is an essential strategy for effective communication. This study examined questioning techniques used by students and the Critical thinking processes involved in questioning. There was also an attempt to find out the differences between the patterns of using questions between the two groups. Data were sourced from student learning group through audio and video taping the sessions and were analyzed using types of questioning. Findings indicated that students asked higher order in level questions such as open - ended, interpretive, and evaluative, inquiry, inferential, and synthesis, while most students raised lower cognitive questions including facts, closed, direct, recall, and knowledge type questions. It is suggested that using higher level questioning technique, more frequently used by teacher as more competent speakers in comparison to students, can foster learning and students are required to attend higher levels of questioning techniques to enhance their speculative, inferential and evaluative thinking ability