This interactive session will discuss an often neglected but critical aspect of building robust results-based management and evaluation in an organization. Without a culture that values empirical evidence and learning from prior experience, the regular and robust use of results information is unlikely. John Mayne will provide a framework of specific actions that can be taken in organizations to build and maintain an evaluative culture. Sarah Earl will review the experiences of IDRC in building a culture of evaluation over the past 15 years. IDRC's approach to evaluation prioritizes equally the use of rigorous methods and the utility of the evaluation process and findings. Swee Goh will present a survey that he has developed to assess organizational learning capacity. He will also share his experiences on how this survey can be used to build a positive learning culture and highlight some lessons learned. Participants will be asked to discuss the barriers they see in their organization for strengthening an evaluative and learning culture and what might be done to overcome them.

Swee Goh, University of Ottawa