Job Requirements and Competencies for Evaluation-titled Positions Within the International Development Sector by Eloisa Ramos

Date: Sunday, April 27, 2025

Hello, AEA365 community! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. This week is Individuals Week, which means we take a break from our themed weeks and spotlight the Hot Tips, Cool Tricks, Rad Resources and Lessons Learned from any evaluator interested in sharing. Would you like to contribute to future individuals weeks? Email me at AEA365@eval.org with an idea or a draft and we will make it happen.

My name is Jonta Kamara, and I have worked on several projects providing evaluation support. Through my work I have learned some key insights to ensure success in evaluation roles.

Evaluation is a cross-cutting area and is done in almost every sector. While working as an evaluator getting to know other evaluators on your team and in different divisions can help support your work. While joining roles, I spent my first weeks getting to know my team members on the projects I have been working with, as well as evaluators in other divisions.

When speaking to your team members, it is helpful to get to know their experiences as well as skills and software people use. Speak to more than just evaluators such as communication specialists, data analyst, and project officers. This will make it easy for you to know who you can reach out to for support when you get fully immersed in your work. Speaking to evaluators can be helpful to get insights into software when making decisions or brainstorming ideas with evaluators who have similar evaluation tasks.

Hot Tips

1. Scan the Literature: Not sure where to start with your evaluation protocol or plan? Searching the literature can be a good start to get an insight of what people have done. If possible, also see what has already been done at your organization to evaluate the program you are working on. This could be in other divisions or the division you are working on.
2. Prioritize Horizontal Networking: If you are in a program/fellowship, speak with others in your cohort and those who graduated recently. They can share insights on similar tasks and can give good advice on software to use to complete your tasks. As well, speak to graduates from your program or others. If you are not in a program/fellowship speak to your team members as they can share advice, resources, and opportunities to make good use of.
3. Make Use of Groups: Using workgroups at your organization can help you expand your evaluation work and ensure you at not working in silos. People may share questions in the group which may also apply to work you are doing. This is a good opportunity to reach out to the individual to brainstorm and help you progress in your work. These workgroups also have lots of resources, so they are also good places to start your evaluation plan.
4. Attend Events: If you are in an organization that holds events, attend events internally. These are great spaces to learn about the work people are doing in your organization. Also look for external events to further develop your skills and hear from other evaluators. A good place to look for events is AEA’s external page.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are personal.

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