Author: pro-cpsevaluation

By: Rovshen Shamedova, Partner, CogniProbe Solutions Inc.

In collective impact, success isn’t just about collaboration — it’s about learning together.
When diverse organizations, each with their own ways of working and measuring success, come together around a shared purpose, something powerful happens: we begin to see the whole system, not just the parts.

Developing a Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) for a collective impact initiative is one of the most transformative steps partners can take. It turns a network of organizations into a learning community, one that measures progress toward a common vision, learns from what works and what doesn’t, and continuously strengthens collective action.

Why Shared Measurement Matters

From Data Collection to Collective Learning

What It Takes

Why Participation Matters

Gita Zareikar, Partner, CogniProbe Solutions Inc.

Why do most evaluations fail to consider environmental sustainability (ES)? In many sectors—health, education, social programs, economic development—evaluations tend to focus on short – to medium-term outcomes for people and systems. But what’s often overlooked is whether those programs are environmentally sustainable or even environmentally harmful.

Do we need to improve our evaluation practices? Absolutely. But are we actually improving? Let’s take a closer look—particularly through Canada’s climate commitments and performance.

In 2015, Canada committed under the Paris Agreement to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. That goal was revised upward in 2021 to a 40–45% reduction by 2030, with a longer-term target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Where are we now in 2025?
As of 2020, Canada’s emissions were only 9% below 2005 levels—and that included temporary reductions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the federal government released its Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP), outlining sectoral strategies to meet its targets. Yet by 2023, the first progress report showed that Canada remained off track and needed to significantly ramp up efforts in oil and gas, transportation, buildings, and other high-emitting sectors.

Meanwhile, the environmental crisis is escalating. In 2023, Canada’s unprecedented wildfires burned over 15 million hectares and released an estimated 647 megatonnes of carbon—the equivalent of about 2.4 billion tonnes of CO₂. According to a 2024 Nature study, this made Canada’s wildfires the fourth-largest source of CO₂ emissions in the world that year—exceeding the annual emissions of most entire countries. As “The Energy Mix” notes, if those wildfires were counted as a country, they would have been among the top eight global emitters.

This context shows why environmental sustainability must be embedded in evaluation practice. Programs that appear successful by conventional metrics may be undermining long-term ecological health. Whether evaluating social services, employment training, or infrastructure projects, evaluators must ask: What is the program’s carbon footprint? Are environmental risks being addressed? Are we advancing sustainability or contributing to long-term harm?

The Footprint Evaluation Initiative, led by the Global Evaluation Initiative, offers a concrete framework for this shift. It calls for integrating environmental sustainability into all evaluations—not as an add-on, but as a core design and assessment principle. It emphasizes that all interventions, regardless of sector, have ecological impacts that must be measured, interpreted, and addressed.

As climate breakdown intensifies, evaluation practice must evolve. It is not enough to improve human outcomes today if those gains come at the expense of future generations. Integrating environmental sustainability into program evaluation is no longer optional—it is essential.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day serve as an opportunity for Canadians to reflect upon the history of residential schools, and work towards reconciliation.

By: Kathleen Baker, Partner, CogniProbe Solutions Inc.

September 30 is Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The day honours Survivors, families and communities of Canada’s residential school system, and remembers the children who never came home. September 30^th is also Orange Shirt Day, a grassroots initiative to raise awareness about the impacts of residential schools, encouraging people to wear an orange shirt to symbolize every child matters. It began in 2013 and was inspired by the story of Phyllis Webstad, a residential school survivor who, on her first day of school, had her orange shirt taken away from her. The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day serve as an opportunity for Canadians to reflect upon the history of residential schools, and work towards reconciliation.

Residential schools were networks of institutions that operated across Canada for more than 150 years between the 1830s and 1996. Funded by the federal government and administered by churches, residential schools were created to separate Aboriginal children from their families, weaken family ties and cultural linkages, and indoctrinate children into Euro-Christian Canadian society. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), a Commission created to investigate and document the history and legacy of Canada’s residential school system concluded that, residential schools were “a systematic, government- sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples”. More than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation children were taken from their families and communities to attend residential schools often located far from their homes. Many Indigenous children died while attending residential schools; the unmarked graves found across Canada through investigations continue to bear witness to the thousands of children who never returned home. 

The residential school system created multi-layered trauma and intergenerational impacts on Indigenous Survivors, families and communities, the impacts of which continue to be felt today. Children experienced abuse, malnutrition and neglect. Children were punished for speaking their own languages or participating in cultural practices. The schools disrupted family connections and weakened community ties. The education was underfunded, and substandard. The legacy of residential schools continues to have lasting impacts on Indigenous communities, contributing to struggles with personal and cultural identity, overrepresentation in child welfare, and economic and social inequities.

As part of Canada’s colonial history, educating ourselves on the history and impact of the residential school system is an important part of reconciliation, but it doesn’t stop there. Reconciliation is an ongoing process to decolonize and build respectful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. It includes actions that recognize and change the colonial policies that cause harm, support Indigenous healing and justice, support the revitalization of Indigenous cultures and traditions, create space for Indigenous leadership and decision making, and many more. Today, there are so many amazing examples of Indigenous language revitalization, youth leadership, self-determination, economic development, fashion, media, mental health and wellness that are happening all over that are positive and powerful examples of community resilience and strength.

In 2015, the TRC released 94 Calls to Action to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation. The calls to action focus on broad themes, from child welfare, education, language and culture, health, justice, commemoration, media, reconciliation and public awareness. They are a set of guiding actions for governments, institutions, and individuals to work towards, that acknowledge the harms of residential schools, address systemic inequities faced by Indigenous communities, protect Indigenous culture and language, and advance reconciliation.

This September 30^th, we encourage you to take part, if you can, in education events happening in and around your community and take time to learn about the history of residential schools. We all have a responsibility to take meaningful action towards strengthening reconciliation.

Youth inclusion in evaluation values young people as co-creators of knowledge. International standards such as the Youth Friendly Standards and EVAL4Action provide tools for organizations to review and assess their existing practices and support improvements.

By: Kathleen Baker, Partner, CogniProbe Solutions Inc.

This past June, the global evaluation initiative (GEI) held their annual knowledge sharing event, gLocal Evaluation Week. GEI is a global network of organizations that come together to discuss monitoring and evaluation learning and support evidence-based decision making for evaluation practice. One gLocal fireside chat hosted by the American Evaluation Association’s Youth-Focused Eval Topical Interest Group, “Institutionalizing Youth-Centric Practices & Standards”, highlighted two international standards for youth inclusion. The session reflected upon the hosts experience in applying youth standards, and the benefits of engaging youth in evaluative practice.

The first standard, Youth Friendly Standards (YFS), released in 2023,  aligns with the United Nations Sustainability Goals (UNSG) and takes a systems based approach to support social transformation and engagement of youth throughout an organization. YFS was developed by the Consortium Jeunesse Sénégal and WeBridge Africa, with the support of UNICEF and Generation Unlimited. The standards are organized across six thematic domains: governance, institutional partnerships, community development, programs/products/services, human resources, and business relationships. 

The second standard, EVAL4Action campaign, also released in 2023 and aligned with the UNSG, provides support for organizations to advance meaningful youth engagement in evaluation. The standards are organized in a structure for organizations to critically self-reflect on their organization and offer prompting questions to embed this practice. The EVAL4Action campaign developed unique standards for six stakeholder groups: academia, governments, international organizations, the private sector, Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation/EvalYouth chapters, and youth organizations. Within each set of standards, EVAL4Action has defined six assessment categories, with each having a spectrum of requirement thresholds.

Taking a closer look at the standards for international organizations to meaningfully engage youth in evaluation, one category to explore is “practice”. This category outlines guidance and requirements to reflect on how an organization’s evaluation guidelines and tools include youth participation in all evaluation phases, focusing on the diversity of youth. For example, Practice Requirement 2.1 provides a threshold for the inclusion of youth voices in an evaluation, ranging from a minimum requirement of “Youth voices are heard during all phases of the evaluation”, to an exceeding minimum requirement of, “Young people are provided space and structures to take responsibility in all phases of the evaluation and participate in co-decision-making with seniors.” At the end of each standard, EVAL4Action provides a scoring rubric to provide a summary of the organization’s score for youth engagement in evaluation practice. The final score and learnings acquired through the reflective exercise, can be used to support decision-making, and improvement plans for the organization going forward.

As evaluators, there is an opportunity to learn from international standards such as YFS and EVAL4Action when creating evaluation plans and data collection methods. These frameworks can provide tools for organizations to assess existing practice, build and improve internal systems, and support meaningful engagement of youth in all phases of an evaluation.

As an evaluator, it’s important to explore participatory, creative and developmentally appropriate methods to empower young people and generate rich data. 

By: Kathleen Baker, Partner, CogniProbe Solutions Inc.

Within the realm of evaluation practice, qualitative data collection provides an opportunity for evaluators to gather information on an individual’s experiences and thoughts; providing a source of rich, descriptive data. Qualitative data collection methods, including the participatory and arts based methods described below, can effectively engage young people in the evaluation process, supporting collaboration and empowerment. 

Photovoice – A photograph can relay a large amount of information instantly, and support youth to share their unique experiences and stories. Through this method, evaluators can engage people to create images that reflect their lived experiences within the context of an evaluation and its research questions. The final collection of photos can facilitate dialogue, and knowledge generation about a particular topic, experience or perspective, to reach broad audiences.

Mind Mapping – Through this method, an evaluator can understand young people’s associations with certain ideas by asking them to write or draw words, images or phrases that relate to the concepts under evaluation. Mind mapping draws upon the unique experiences of youth and actively involves them in the knowledge creation process. Additional mapping techniques like body mapping, involve paper tracing a person on a sheet of paper and undertaking a similar reflective exercise. This approach can be facilitated through workshops and provides an opportunity for self-reflection to identify emotions, feelings and experiences. 

Journey Mapping – This method involves having an individual who has engaged with a certain program or system, map their experiences through a chronological ordering, highlighting key touchpoints like interactions with administrators, or receiving services. Through this, individuals can identify successes, barriers, or learnings that can provide knowledge to an evaluator on strengths and areas for program improvement. 

Drama based techniques (like Forum Theatre) – Forum Theatre is a type of drama-based technique that engages the audience in an interactive role-playing exercise to develop real-time strategies for dealing with social issues, for example, scenarios around racism. In Forum Theatre workshops, participants can be both actors and audience members. Within the context of an evaluation, a forum theatre production can be used as a tool to create a scenario based on an evaluation’s findings. Participants can engage with the findings, bringing in their own experiences and a facilitator can prompt questions and dialogue around the scenario. 

When selecting a participatory or arts-based method to undertake data collection with youth, it’s important to work with youth to co-design and choose the best method to meaningfully engage them. This supports their buy in and helps ensure an appropriate cultural and context fit.