Short Abstract

In this interactive session, we will explore practical ways to embed community and lived-experience perspectives throughout the evaluation cycle. Discover lessons for meaningful participation under budget constraints and how to turn evidence into equity-driven action.

Description

This interactive panel will showcase how three diverse, utilisation-focused evaluations incorporated community and lived-experience perspectives at multiple stages of the evaluation cycle. Drawing on examples from the Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation of the Türkiye–Syria earthquakes, UNICEF’s Accountability to Affected Populations evaluation, and the UK government-funded evaluation of programmes addressing modern slavery and human trafficking (MSHT), the session will highlight practical, resource-sensitive approaches for meaningful participation amid shrinking budgets.

Presenters will share key factors that enabled engagement, communication methods used, and how challenges were addressed. After brief presentations (<30 minutes), participants will facilitate a collaborative learning session to explore the evaluations in depth, exchange experiences, and discuss strategies for engaging communities and stakeholders beyond data collection.

Innovative and good practice approaches that we’ll cover include:

• Working with a Lived Experience Advisory Group from inception to co-creating recommendations. This strengthened relevance and accountability and helped ensure that data collection methods were sensitive to the needs of MSHT survivors.

• Designing context-specific stakeholder engagement methodologies to promote marginalized voices (including those of indigenous groups and persons with disabilities) and to ensure the participation of diverse stakeholders in iterative analysis and validation processes.

• Consulting actors from global to local levels at key decision points. This shaped evaluation areas of enquiry (e.g., the inclusion of duty of care as a topic important to aid workers) and helped in developing context-specific and actionable recommendations.

• Extending engagement beyond reporting through:

- timely briefs (produced before report publication) to inform the Myanmar earthquake response and the Humanitarian Reset

- multilingual dissemination of reports, one-pagers, webinars and videos

- involving response actors in the dissemination of lessons and good practice through creative formats such as short videos for social media.

Together, we will reflect on lessons learned and practical steps to turn evaluative evidence into equity-driven action.