International Congress on Evaluation

We are pleased to let you know that we have started our reach out process with the participation of the community of practice initiative in the International Congress on Evaluation organized by ReLAC and Universidad de Costa Rica in San Jose. The community of practice initiative was also presented at Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) a research academic institute based in Turrialba Costa Rica.

During the International Congress we had the unique opportunity to share the panel presentation "Communities of Practice in the Evaluation of Climate Change and Development" with Asocam and Preval. Asocam is a Latin American platform that facilitates initiatives and opportunities for exchange and collective construction to promote knowledge management on key issues of rural development in the region. Among its projects are the monitoring and evaluation of methodological frameworks for climate change adaptation in the Andes. Preval develops evaluative skills to play a role as technical adviser, facilitator and/or coach through meetings, training, inter-learning workshops and internships, virtual technical assistance, support and supervision. It also has experience in managing communities of practice to promote sustainable development.

Both organizations focus are very well complemented with our community of practice initiative. The panel presentation was a success and gave us the opportunity to find regional associations for potential future projects as well as to introduce the community of practice on climate change evaluation in the region.

We have also the chance to present at CATIE, a leading academic institute in Latin America focused on agro-forestry and climate change investigation. CATIE hosts researchers and students from all over the world and organized an interactive discussion meeting to present the community of practice initiative to professors and graduate students. At the presentation meeting we were able to hear comments and inputs from the attendees about regional needs as well as their perspectives on climate change evaluation. We are looking forward to receive more ideas from CATIE's researches and to increase our approach to academia in other countries and regions. If you know about an academic institutions or evaluation organizations in your country/region that might be interested in the focus of our community of practice on climate change evaluation please let us know, so we can include them in our network to share experiences and work together.