Evaluation in the Polycrisis Epoch

Polycrisis constitutes a set of interrelated, interdependent, and mutually reinforcing crises. Climate change, the pandemic health crisis, growing global inequality, misinformation, increased hunger, heightened nuclear danger, pollution of air, land, and seas, and threats to democracy interact and are mutually reinforcing. Evaluation plays a critical role in mitigating these crises. Valid and useful data can inform decisions in the face of crisis. Democratic decision-making requires an informed citizenry engaged in a battle against misinformation, politicized knowledge, irrational decision-making, and authoritarian governments. Greek history and philosophy provide guidance for dealing with the modern polycrisis. The evaluation agenda must move from judging effectiveness of projects to evaluating transformation of systems. Solutions will require breaking down the silos of specialized ministries and working with a variety of stakeholders across landscapes, seascapes, and cities to achieve multiple goals at once. There simply isn’t enough time or money to pursue isolated and contradictory solutions. That requires engaging with systems transformation. Greek evaluators will have to balance global knowledge and trends as context for local and national knowledge and trends affecting evaluation. This means zooming out for the big picture globally and zooming in within Greece for local trends and evaluation implications.