Date: Saturday, January 17, 2026
Hello, I am Mervyan Konjore, a doctoral student in evaluation and applied research at Claremont Graduate University. The ultimate objective of evaluation capacity building (ECB) is sustainable evaluation practice. We can move toward this goal by learning from published practitioner evaluations, conducting research on ECB, and measuring evaluation capacity in more consistent and meaningful ways.
One of the biggest takeaways from my research reviewing two decades of ECB literature is this: valuable lessons from practitioner evaluations often fail to reach the broader evaluation community. Many evaluations remain unpublished when they contain adverse findings or get shared as part of the “grey literature,” making it difficult for others to learn from them.
Additionally, even when research does make it to publication, relaying findings to practice can be a long, drawn-out process. By the time evidence is available, it can feel outdated or irrelevant. For example, I recently published a study on what could improve the adoption of cost-inclusive evaluations. However, the slow pace of publication means it took years for those findings to be accessible, highlighting the gap between research and practice.
Strengthening evaluation capacity is a complex endeavor. Through an exploratory qualitative study, I found that capacity building strategies must operate across multiple levels—within individuals, within organizations, among connected individuals, and through professional evaluation associations. This raises an important question: how do we identify the best points of intervention for building evaluation capacity?
When practitioner evaluations remain hidden and research evidence takes too long to reach those who need it, we need more efficient ways to identify evaluation capacity gaps. But do we have tools that allow for timely and accurate capacity assessments, especially in lower-resourced settings where evaluation is essential for governance but often still emerging? This question currently drives my dissertation research. We know that changes in individual knowledge, skills, and behavior materialize only about half the time, which suggests a need for more systematic assessments to identify where gaps exist. However, we have not yet fully explored or leveraged the potential of measuring evaluation capacity to guide ECB efforts toward sustainability.
Many existing evaluation capacity scales are either unvalidated or were validated in Western contexts, limiting their relevance in other settings. There is a pressing need to develop and validate instruments that can:
If we want to equip organizations to respond effectively to the conditions that influence ECB, we must improve how we measure evaluation capacity. Better measurement tools and a deeper understanding of the conditions that shape capacity building are key to ensuring that evaluation becomes a sustainable, integral part of practice.
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