ABSTRACT
Evaluators are engaged in a battle about what constitutes evidence and truth in a post-truth, anti-science world. That is the context for extracting lessons about transforming evaluation to address the major systems transformations needed in health, climate, food, and social justice. Three fundamental transformations are needed: from project thinking to systems thinking, from theory of change to theory of transformation, and from simple linear approaches to complexity understandings. Beyond methodological and technical developments, evaluating transformation must be ethically grounded by incorporating the criteria of equity and sustainability. The implication for utilization-focused evaluation is that evaluators present to primary intended users the importance of equity and sustainability as criteria. Traditionally the evaluator's credibility flows from independence and neutrality. Evaluation for transformation changes the evaluator's role with credibility based on interdependence and shared engagement. There is no external, independent stance in a pandemic. Everyone is affected. Everyone has a stake, including evaluators. The greatest danger for evaluators in times of turbulence like the pandemic is not the turbulence itself – it is to act within yesterday's paradigm without adapting evaluation to the challenges of a changed world.
