Date: Thursday, February 5, 2026
Hello fellow evaluators! I am Pooja Singh, an impact and evaluation professional with 10+ years’ experience supporting governments, multilateral and bilateral funders, and philanthropic donors to inform funding, policy, and programme decisions in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Ghana, Mongolia, and the US. I am the Membership and Engagement Chair of the International and Cross-Cultural Topical Interest Group (ICCE TIG) of the American Evaluation Association (AEA).
For a long time, my career felt steady and clearly defined. I was working as an international evaluator in the international development space, focused on asking difficult questions, prioritizing evidence, and supporting learning across thematic areas in complex contexts. Then the ground shifted. US foreign aid funding contractions in 2025 didn’t just affect individual projects; they disrupted an entire ecosystem. For me, those changes also meant leaving the U.S. and seriously considering other markets. Like many others, I found myself needing to rethink not just my next role, but how my professional identity would need to adapt and pivot.
This experience is far from unique. Across geographies, many development practitioners, researchers, and evaluators are navigating similar transitions, often triggered by forces outside their control. The language we once relied on doesn’t always land in new markets. Job descriptions rarely capture the depth or nuance of our work. And yet, the skills we bring remain deeply relevant.
As I’ve explored opportunities beyond the spaces I knew best, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people, listening, asking questions, and trying to understand how different sectors think about impact and learning. Those conversations have been grounding. They’ve reminded me that evaluative thinking shows up in many places: social impact organizations, impact investing, public sector organizations, philanthropic foundations, and universities, where evaluation, research, and learning are essential to understanding what works, for whom, and why.
Because my career has always been international, this moment feels less like starting over and more like a reorientation. At the heart of my work has always been a belief that strong evaluation is built through meaningful partnerships with local actors. The most useful evidence, in my experience, is not extracted by external experts, but generated through engagement with those closest to the work, including the practitioners, communities, and stakeholders whose knowledge shapes both the questions we ask and the answers we trust.
This transition has also pushed me to be clearer about what I value. High methodological rigor and a strong evidence base are non-negotiable for me, but so is relevance. I’m less interested in roles where “impact” is a buzzword than in environments where learning is genuinely resourced, evidence is co-created, and findings, especially uncomfortable ones, are taken seriously.
Making this pivot across sectors and geographies has been both unsettling and expansive. It has required learning new vocabularies, understanding different institutional cultures, and sitting with uncertainty. But it has also opened up new possibilities for where evaluation can live and how it can be practiced.
As I continue navigating this transition, I take comfort in knowing that many others are doing the same. We are collectively rethinking where our skills belong—and, in the process, widening the spaces where evidence, partnership, and learning can truly matter.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting International and Cross-Cultural (ICCE) TIG Week with our colleagues in the International and Cross-Cultural Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our ICCE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.