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Before I joined TCC Group as an evaluation and learning consultant, I was a therapist. My days consisted of listening to people as they tried to navigate and make meaning of their lives. It was during this season of my life that I came to be a steadfast believer in the importance of having good facilitation skills. Good facilitation skills are essential for drawing out meaningful insights during an exchange.

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Marie-Gervais in mid-December 2020.  Marie, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Laval University, Quebec, made a lasting contribution to the French-speaking evaluation community in Canada, Europe and Africa.  

We wanted to honour Marie’s legacy by sharing some of the initiatives she supported and some of her ideas on improving evaluation practice.

It’s one thing to look at project and program ratings to see how well the stated objectives of a portfolio of projects are being met. But without an aggregate view of what these objectives are trying to achieve, it’s difficult to fully understand how well this portfolio is contributing to an organisation’s mission and wider development goals. What’s missing is a better understanding of the links between project objectives and the types of outcomes that these are aiming to achieve.

Given the numerous interconnected environmental crises the world faces, there is an urgent need to include consideration of environmental impacts into all evaluations. Footprint evaluation focuses on evaluating the ‘footprint’ that human systems make on natural systems. Importantly, it includes evaluating the potential and actual environmental impacts of interventions that do not have explicit environmental objectives.