Residence: Tennessee, USA

IOCE Position: AEA Representative

Affiliation: Independent International Program Evaluator www.RealWorldEvaluation.net

Jim has been professionally involved for 44 years in rural community development in Africa, Asia, Appalachia and other parts of the world, specializing in international program evaluation for 28 years. In 2007 he retired after serving for 12 years as head of Design, Monitoring and Evaluation for Accountability and Learning for CARE International, responsible for promoting strategies for enhanced capacity for evaluation throughout that world-wide organization. Jim is recognized as a leader in evaluation among colleagues in the international NGO community, including InterAction’s Evaluation Interest Group, as well as active involvement for many years in the International and Cross-Cultural Evaluation Topical Interest Group of the American Evaluation Association (AEA). He currently serves as the AEA representative to the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE, the over-all coordinating body of professional evaluation associations around the world). He co-authored the popular and practical RealWorld Evaluation book (published by Sage in 2006) and has led numerous workshops on that topic for many organizations and networks in many countries.

Though retired, Jim still occasionally responds to requests to do short-term consultancies and lead professional development workshops. Recent evaluation-related consultancies include Catholic Relief Services, UNICEF and World Vision International.

In summary, Jim brings experience in community development and in evaluating and facilitating self-evaluation by participants in such programs. He has trained staff of and/or evaluated the programs of many different international agencies. Committed to helping the poor and marginalized work on self-empowerment and development, and to encouraging appropriate assistance offered to them, he brings a perspective of the "big picture," including familiarity with a wide variety of community groups and assistance agencies in many countries, plus an eye to detail and a respect for inclusiveness and the participatory process.