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Indigenous Approaches to Evaluation in Urban Settings: Theory Into Practice
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| Presenter(s):
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| Julie Nielsen, NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center Inc, niels048@umn.edu
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| Abstract:
This paper describes how one indigenous evaluator (Anishinabe, White Earth) co-translated her research-based theory of indigenous approaches to evaluation in urban settings into practice with an urban-based Native nonprofit organization that was transforming itself from a “deficit-based social services” agency into an “assets/strengths-based healing community.” The organization was exercising self-determination in providing culturally-specific programming, but was frustrated by the constraints to extending such self-determination into its evaluations, which were largely prescribed by the organization’s funders. I will describe my study and the steps we took together - in the midst of substantial organizational turmoil not unfamiliar to those who work in nonprofit settings - to use the findings of the study to create and support the organization’s new self-determined model of evaluation The paper will also explain how the indigenous values underlying the indigenous approach intersected with House’s (date) notions of “truth, beauty, and justice,” while addressing issues of evaluation quality.
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The Place-Value of Indigenous Knowledge in a Promoting the Use of Evaluation Findings: A Case Study on Using Qualitative Measures to Assess the (Potential) Impact of Public Works Programmes on the Lives of the Poor and the Vulnerable in a Post-conflict Environment
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| Presenter(s):
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| Simon Kisira, Evaluation Resource Group, simon_skw5@yahoo.co.uk
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| Abstract:
While impact evaluations of public works programmes are usually conducted using quantitative methods, in the absence of counterfactuals and authentic baselines, coupled with budgetary constraints, the case study will give an exposition of a planned longitudinal evaluation largely employing the use of indigenous methods of measurement and assessment, taking into account the before and after scenarios among sampled “haves” and selected “have-not” households.
To the extent possible, the assessments will give relative weights based on factors such as height of insurgency in Northern Uganda, resettlement of displaced persons and the introduction of the traditional justice system. Peer reviews among local community “evaluators” and mutual accountability between the different actors on the project will be emphasized.
The quality of an evaluation, in this case, will be measured by the extent to which the evaluation findings are deemed useful, acceptable and ultimately used by local community members, project managers and policy makers for learning and decision making.
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