Background and Context
In October 2019, at the conclusion of the Third International Conference on Evaluating Environment and Development‘, participants unanimously adopted a “Global Declaration on Evaluation for Transformational Change.” On the occasion of the 4th Conference on Evaluating Environment and Development in March, 2024, in Washington, DC, the Conference participants reviewed an updated and expanded draft of the one of the 10 items in the Prague declaration, the statement on Evaluation for Sustainability. The result was a free-standing statement of commitment published on Earth Day 2024 and reproduced here.
No statement will say exactly what each evaluator alone might want to say, or what a specific organization or association would support on its own. Wordsmithing is important, yet so is making commitments and taking action. The Declaration constituted a way for the global evaluation community to make a collective commitment to playing a positive and meaningful role in addressing the climate crisis and related polycrisis changes.
2024 EARTH DAY EVALUATION DECLARATION:
Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability and Regeneration in Evaluations
Evaluators’ Role
Given the overwhelming evidence that the climate emergency, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, and pollution of water, air, and land threaten the future of humanity and all life on Earth…
We commit to introducing context-specific criteria for environmental, social, and economic sustainability and regeneration into all evaluations recognizing that these three domains are intertwined.
Role of Commissioners of Evaluation
We call on those who commission, fund, and use evaluations to include and support context- specific criteria for environmental, social, and economic sustainability and regeneration in all evaluations.
Elaboration, Implications, and Implementation Guidance
Scope. Taking the polycrisis seriously means including appropriate and relevant sustainability and regeneration criteria in all approaches to evaluation for all types of interventions and change efforts, and across all sectors – public, private, nongovernmental, academic in whatever ways are relevant and feasible.
Level. The universality of the multi-faceted environmental and related crises means developing and applying context-specific environmental, social, and economic sustainability and regeneration criteria at all levels, local and indigenous, regional and national, Global North and Global South, international and global, within formal institutions and informal networks, and in so doing, take into account the mutually reinforcing interrelationships across levels.
Interconnectedness. We reiterate the interconnectedness of environmental, social, economic, political, and cultural systems. Our focus is on the mutually reinforcing and dynamic interrelationships among environmental sustainability and regeneration, equitable, inclusive, and resilient social systems, and economic justice to make clear that these are not conflicting ideals to be pitted against each other but rather interdependent systems that need to be examined, understood, and evaluated together.
Values undergirding the criteria.
– Environmental sustainability and regeneration is based on valuing nature, humanity, and all life forms as interdependent. This leads to valuing and supporting restoration, mitigation and adaptation initiatives to significantly reduce greenhouse gases, end pollution of air, land, and water, restore and protect ecological biodiversity, restore endangered ecosystems and degraded soils, and increase the resilience of human and natural systems.
– Social sustainability includes reducing inequities and disparities consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals and inclusive and democratic governance processes and institutional arrangements that are genuinely diverse and inclusive, including gender equity and upholding the rights of Indigenous peoples, and with capacity to effectively initiate and ensure effective action based on principles of environmental justice that respect and strengthen community voices.
– Economic sustainability includes living within the limits of the Earth’s resources while meeting the basic needs of all, where everyone has enough and no one has far too much.
Nexus perspective. Evaluating at the nexus where environmental, social, and economic actions interconnect and intertwine means applying a complex systems framework in evaluation, seeking restorative and regenerative solutions that endure resiliently, and documenting both positive and negative patterns, intended and unintended, and planned, adapted, and emergent pathways toward transformation.
Context. Sustainability evaluations include recognition of the historical patterns of exploitation, extraction, expropriation, colonialism, oppression, human dominance over nature, and greed that have created the climate crisis.
Uses. Evaluation for sustainability and regeneration should be designed and implemented to improve and enhance sustainability-inclusive initiatives, support informed, strategic and democratic decision-making through processes and procedures that are fair and just, and strengthen community voice in evaluations and interventions To do so, sustainability- inclusive evaluations will build and facilitate collaborations with those who commission, fund, implement, and are meant to benefit from evaluation processes and results.
Role and responsibility. All evaluators have a responsibility to bring this commitment to sustainable, regenerative, and restorative evaluation criteria into their work and be able to explain to stakeholders that these criteria constitute a statement of evaluators’ professional and ethical responsibility, thereby advocating on behalf of inclusion of these criteria in an appropriate way and doing what is practically feasible given constraints of capacity, resources, and context.
Transformation. In affirming this Declaration, we recognize that the challenges confronting our world – energy, environment, climate change, food security, financial security, human security, sustainability for all forms of life – demand solutions beyond what traditional evaluation methods can provide. Evaluating systems transformation initiatives through a multi-dimensional and cross-levels sustainability lens will require innovative and inclusive evaluation approaches grounded in, engaged with, and responsive to multiple perspectives.
Commitment. Our shared commitment is to ensure that evaluation is part of the solution going forward and not part of the problem, and that in addressing environmental, social and economic sustainability and regeneration, evaluation makes meaningful, substantive, timely, rigorous, feasible, and useful contributions to a more equitable and sustainable future.
Click here to read or download the fill declaration.
Click here to watch a recording of the webinar launching the declaration in 2024.
Click here to endorse the declaration.
