DEPA-MERL Webinars

USAID's Developmental Evaluation Pilot Activity (DEPA-MERL) project shared learnings from their Developmental Evaluations (DEs) throughout the award through webinars. We've included a selection of webinars on this page.

The Ins and Outs of the Embedded Evaluator. October 26, 2022. - A panel of embedded evaluators discus their roles, lessons learned, and best practices on various DEs.

Developmental Evaluation: A Tool for Operational Effectiveness. April 14, 2023 - While most folks agree that adaptive management is crucial to improving operational effectiveness, often teams struggle with what that looks like tangibly – particularly when dealing with bureaucratic or administrative hurdles. Over the past 10 years, USAID has begun to test the ability of developmental evaluation (DE) to put adaptive management into action. In addressing the Agency’s Learning Question Agenda on operational effectiveness, this session will discuss how DE has been able to improve programming and effectiveness for USAID HQ, host country governments, and partner organizations alike; and what obstacles they have encountered along the way. Panelists who have served on DEs at different levels and across different geographies will share what they’ve learned about DEs’ ability to contribute to enhanced operations within the USAID context. 

Adaptive Management and Developmental Evaluation. August 31, 2023. - DE serves more than an evaluative purpose.  DE is also a program design and implementation approach, an adaptive management tool, and can be a program intervention unto itself. Practically speaking, this means the Evaluator works with stakeholders to facilitate the learning and adaptation that others may not be able to undertake given other responsibilities. In so doing, DEs strengthen individual and organizational capacity. In this webinar, hear from panelists on how they adapted their activities and processes based on DE.  Panelists will share different types of deliverables and techniques that were used in DEs to engage stakeholders with the data and allow for adaptive management. We’ll also share how the Evaluator can build capacity around adaptive management during the DE.