| Overview –
History
1. 1998 INTERNATIONAL PANEL
On November 6, 1998, during a plenary session
of the American Evaluation Association conference, the presidents
of several national evaluation organizations sat on a panel and
debated the pros and cons of entering into a partnership. The organizations
represented on the panel were the American Evaluation Association,
Associazione Italiana di Valutazione, Australasian Evaluation Society,
Canadian Evaluation Society, Kenyan Evaluation Association, and
the United Kingdom Evaluation Society. Position papers had been
submitted in advance by the organizations represented on the panel
as well as by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur valuation, European
Evaluation Society, and Malaysian Evaluation Society.
2. 1999 INTERNATIONAL
PANEL
"The Presidents
Panel: One Year Later" held at the 1999 conference of the American
Evaluation Association, Nov 3-6, Orlando FL
The President's Panel of the AEA 1999 conference
in Orlando Fl. focused on international developments in evaluation
organization. In attendance were: Craig Russon, who chaired the
sessions, Alberto Silvani of the Italian Evaluation Association,
Michael Bamberger of the World Bank, Donna Mertens from the American
Evaluation Association, James Mugaju from the Rwandan Evaluation
Network, Jean-Rene Bibeau from the Canadian Evaluation Society,
Arnold Love, who was the moderator of this panel, and also David
Nevo who is with the Israeli Association of Program Evaluation.
In the fall of 1997, a discussion was held on the
XC-Eval listserv about the international nature of the evaluation
profession. Shortly after the discussion, the International &
Cross-Cultural Evaluation topical interest group sent invitations
to the presidents of nine national evaluation associations inviting
them to sit on a panel to discuss the creation of a worldwide community
of evaluation. In addition to the presidents, the TIG designated
one of its co-chairs to sit on the panel to represent the interests
of developing countries and regions of the world that did not have
formal evaluation associations.
The panel took place on November 6 during the plenary
session of the Chicago 98 AEA conference. The organizations represented
on the panel were the African Evaluation Association, the American
Evaluation Association, the Italian Evaluation Association, the
Australasian Evaluation Society, the Canadian Evaluation Society,
and the United Kingdom Evaluation Society. Dr. Arnold Love, the
former president of the Canadian Evaluation Society and principal
organizer of the International Evaluation Conference that was held
in Vancouver in 1995, moderated the panel.
Position papers had been submitted in advance by the
organizations represented on the panel as well as the European Evaluation
Society and the Malaysian Evaluation Society. The position papers
and a summary of the presidents' panel are contained in this document,
entitled "Creating a World Wide Evaluation Community"
that was published in the Occasional Paper Series of the Evaluation
Center at Western Michigan University. One of the outcomes of the
panel was the decision, made by the presidents, to move ahead slowly
with this initiative. However, questions remained about the organizational
structure, the unit of membership, governance and procedures, and
financial support. The distinguished panelists discussed the challenges
and the progress that their organizations have made in the year
since the original presidents panel. Then Arnold Love presented
on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant that has been made to further
this initiative.
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