Khulisa evaluated our first-ever virtual Evaluation Design Competition, that took place in June during gLOCAL 2020. Using interviews, and a short survey, we derived three key lessons for the future. Was the competition a success? The data tells the story! Visit our blog for more.

Lesson 1: Team dynamics can be tricky, and roles need to be clearly clarified right from the start

Lesson 2: The more information, the merrier! Applicants need lots of context to plan their approach

Lesson 3: Virtual competitions are a time-consuming business – ideally tackle such initiatives during organizational downtime   Highlights: Our blog ends, with the two highlights:

• Young & Emerging Evaluators gained completely new technical skills through participating

“The competition was a good exercise in designing an external evaluation from scratch, which is something I had never done before. My team members had approaches or ideas that were new to me, as well. Additionally it was also a good experience in remote team management and organization. I also used graphic design software and learned to use Piktochart.”

• Play Africa gained rich insights and exposure to new talent. In fact, one of the competitors, Jen Norins, from the winning team joined Play Africa to as a virtual intern to assist with monitoring and evaluation development as a result of the event.

“I welcome the opportunity to be part of a challenging learning experience to strengthen my evaluation skills. Although I am currently pursuing my PhD in evaluation capacity building, I have not had opportunities to be exposed to, nor to work on various methodologies and apply these new skills. I welcome the opportunity to learn and work in a team”

Jen Norins