American Journal of Evaluation Week: AEJ Editor Insights: Key Reflections on How the Evaluation Community Can Encourage More Evaluators to Publish Their Research by Tabitha Olang

Date: Friday, October 24, 2025

Tabitha Olang here, currently the Africa Region’s MEL Manager at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP). I am also one of the guest editors for the African Evaluation Journal’s (AEJ) Special Collection: Building the Evidence Base for Climate Solutions in Africa, which aims to advance evaluation as a science and practice with significant implications for development on the continent, particularly by addressing the intersection of climate change and sustainable development goals. This special edition was based on the Climate Change, Agriculture and Sustainable environment management strand at the 11^th African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) Biennial Conference in 2024. Interested presenters were requested to submit their research to the Special collection for potential publication.

Lessons Learned

Today, I would like to share with you some key reflections from my experience as a guest editor for the AEJ’s Special collection over the last couple of months.

By publishing their research, evaluators contribute to growing the body of knowledge of the evaluation field and practice. This special collection targets evaluators as its audience and aims to make contribution to the field of African evaluation.
Even though evaluators may be keen to publish their research, they are unable to do so due to several constraints. Initially, most of the evaluators who presented their research at the Climate Evaluation Strand at the AfREA conference expressed interest in submitting their research to the AEJ special collection. However, due to lack of time and capacity, concerns over sensitive information and lack of familiarity with journal procedures, some evaluators withdrew their interest in publishing their research. As guest editors in this special issue, we proactively supported the evaluators in navigating the AEJ specific submission guidelines and formatting requirements.
To effectively support evaluators in converting their conference presentations to research publications, it is critical to design for this vision from the onset. The Climate Change, Agriculture and Sustainable environment management strand organizers achieved this by sharing with the presenters detailed presentation outlines and guidelines to all presenters before their presentations. After their presentations, the strand organizers encouraged the presenters to incorporate feedback from the audience and selected an appropriate journal for the presenters to consider publishing their research (in this case the AEJ Special collection). During the writing process, the strand organizers developed a realistic timeline for writing and revisions, communicating the same with each interested presenter ahead of time. Additionally, the presenters received resources for writing support, namely three guest editors to provide tailored support during the writing process.

The AEJ Special Collection: Building the Evidence Base for Climate Solutions in Africa highlights African-led solutions, innovative methodologies, and diverse stakeholder contributions, reinforcing the journal’s commitment to indigenous knowledge, transformative evaluation practices, and expanding its scope to include environmental evaluation.

Rad Resources

The 11^th AfrEA 2024 Conference Climate Change, Agriculture and Sustainable environment management strand co-organized by AfREA, The Rockefeller Foundation and Genesis Analytics.
Building the Evidence Base for Climate Solutions in Africa Vol 13, No 2 (2025) which will contain all the published research from the Climate Evaluation strand

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