Just pitching in, like Silva, to congratulate Musta on making such a great point. The seeming marginal value and high opportunity costs of EAs.
At 2022’s european evaluation society, the key note by Estelle Raimondo and Peter Dahler-Larsen was striking. They rehearsed an interesting analysis on the indiscriminate application and diminishing returns to the practice of late through its "performative" use. Bureaucratic capture.
Some argue EAs are the least of today’s evaluation community’s concerns.
The keynote’s reference to how "....sometimes, agencies can reduce reputational risk and draw legitimacy from having an evaluation system rather than from using it" reminds of the analogy the famous classicist and poet AE Housman made in 1903:
"...gentlemen who use manuscripts as drunkards use lamp-posts,—not to light them on their way but to dissimulate their instability.”
RE: Evaluability Assessments: An invitation to reflect and discuss
United Kingdom
Daniel Ticehurst
Monitoring > Evaluation Specialist
freelance
Posted on 23/08/2024
Just pitching in, like Silva, to congratulate Musta on making such a great point. The seeming marginal value and high opportunity costs of EAs.
At 2022’s european evaluation society, the key note by Estelle Raimondo and Peter Dahler-Larsen was striking. They rehearsed an interesting analysis on the indiscriminate application and diminishing returns to the practice of late through its "performative" use. Bureaucratic capture.
Some argue EAs are the least of today’s evaluation community’s concerns.
The keynote’s reference to how "....sometimes, agencies can reduce reputational risk and draw legitimacy from having an evaluation system rather than from using it" reminds of the analogy the famous classicist and poet AE Housman made in 1903:
"...gentlemen who use manuscripts as drunkards use lamp-posts,—not to light them on their way but to dissimulate their instability.”