Building an Evaluation Culture in M&E Training Course

Building an Evaluation Culture in M&E Training Course

Introduction

Building a strong evaluation culture is no longer optional for organizations seeking accountability, learning, adaptive management, and evidence-based decision-making. Building Organizational M&E Capacity Training Course equips organizations with the mindset, systems, leadership practices, and incentives required to embed evaluation into everyday operations. The course emphasizes organizational learning, utilization-focused evaluation, performance management, and results-based accountability, ensuring evaluations are not just conducted but actively used to improve programs and policies.

Through practical tools, real-world case studies, and participatory learning, participants will explore how to shift from compliance-driven M&E to learning-oriented, adaptive, and value-driven evaluation systems. The course addresses leadership buy-in, staff capacity, data use culture, ethical evaluation practices, and continuous improvement mechanisms, enabling organizations to institutionalize evaluation as a core organizational competency aligned with strategic goals and donor expectations.

Course Duration

5 days

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Understand the principles of evaluation culture and organizational learning
2. Embed evidence-based decision-making within organizational systems
3. Strengthen leadership ownership and governance of evaluation
4. Promote evaluation use and knowledge translation
5. Design learning-oriented M&E frameworks
6. Integrate evaluation into strategic planning and performance management
7. Foster adaptive management and continuous improvement
8. Build staff capacity for evaluation thinking and evaluative inquiry
9. Address resistance to evaluation and change management
10. Institutionalize ethical and inclusive evaluation practices
11. Strengthen data quality, credibility, and trust
12. Align evaluation culture with donor accountability and results frameworks
13. Develop organizational action plans for sustaining evaluation culture

Target Audience

1. Monitoring & Evaluation Officers and Specialists
2. Program and Project Managers
3. Senior Management and Executives
4. NGO and CSO Leaders
5. Government M&E Units and Policy Analysts
6. Donor Agency Staff and Development Partners
7. Research, Learning, and Knowledge Management Officers
8. Consultants and Evaluation Practitioners

Course Modules

Module 1: Foundations of Evaluation Culture

• Definition and characteristics of evaluation culture
• Evaluation vs compliance-driven M&E
• Learning organizations and evaluative thinking
• Global evaluation standards and norms
• Case Study: Transforming M&E culture in an international NGO

Module 2: Leadership and Governance for Evaluation

• Role of leadership in promoting evaluation use
• Evaluation policies and governance structures
• Incentives and accountability mechanisms
• Managing power dynamics and evaluation independence
• Case Study: Government-led evaluation reforms

Module 3: Organizational Systems and Structures

• Embedding evaluation in organizational processes
• Integration with planning, budgeting, and reporting
• Performance management systems
• Knowledge management and learning platforms
• Case Study: Institutionalizing evaluation in a public agency

Module 4: Building Staff Capacity and Mindset

• Developing evaluation competencies
• Learning-by-doing and mentoring approaches
• Overcoming evaluation anxiety and resistance
• Communities of practice and peer learning
• Case Study: Capacity strengthening in decentralized programs

Module 5: Data Use, Learning, and Adaptation

• From data collection to decision-making
• Sense-making, reflection, and learning loops
• Adaptive management and course correction
• Communicating findings for different audiences
• Case Study: Using evaluation findings to redesign programs

Module 6: Ethics, Trust, and Credibility in Evaluation

• Ethical principles in evaluation
• Participatory and inclusive evaluation approaches
• Data integrity and transparency
• Managing political and sensitive evaluations
• Case Study: Ethical challenges in humanitarian evaluations

Module 7: Incentives, Accountability, and Sustainability

• Rewarding learning and innovation
• Aligning donor requirements with learning goals
• Sustainability of evaluation systems
• Balancing accountability and learning
• Case Study: Donor-funded programs fostering evaluation use

Module 8: Action Planning and Institutionalization

• Assessing organizational evaluation maturity
• Developing evaluation culture roadmaps
• Change management strategies
• Monitoring progress toward evaluation culture
• Case Study: Long-term evaluation culture transformation

Training Methodology

This course employs a participatory and hands-on approach to ensure practical learning, including:

• Interactive lectures and presentations.
• Group discussions and brainstorming sessions.
• Hands-on exercises using real-world datasets.
• Role-playing and scenario-based simulations.
• Analysis of case studies to bridge theory and practice.
• Peer-to-peer learning and networking.
• Expert-led Q&A sessions.
• Continuous feedback and personalized guidance.

Register as a group from 3 participants for a Discount

Send us an email: info@datastatresearch.org or call +254724527104 

Certification

Upon successful completion of this training, participants will be issued with a globally- recognized certificate.

Tailor-Made Course

 We also offer tailor-made courses based on your needs.

Key Notes

a. The participant must be conversant with English.

b. Upon completion of training the participant will be issued with an Authorized Training Certificate

c. Course duration is flexible and the contents can be modified to fit any number of days.

d. The course fee includes facilitation training materials, 2 coffee breaks, buffet lunch and A Certificate upon successful completion of Training.

e. One-year post-training support Consultation and Coaching provided after the course.

f. Payment should be done at least a week before commence of the training, to DATASTAT CONSULTANCY LTD account, as indicated in the invoice so as to enable us prepare better for you.