The Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) brought its variant of the Lahore Policy Exchange via a co-hosted webinar session with the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP). CERP is an affiliate center of CLEAR, a global M&E capacity development program, which organized the gLOCAL Evaluation Week, a platform for policymakers, evaluators and evaluation users, academics, non-governmental and private sector stakeholders for sharing knowledge on strengthening M&E capacity, fostering accountability for results and promoting evidence-based policymaking.

CDPR held a webinar session under the platform of gLOCAL Evaluation Week on “The role of Covid-19 in improving communication in evaluation practices” on Friday, 5th June from 6:00pm to 7:00pm.

The global fallout due to Covid-19 has led to improved emergency response systems against quickly identified standard benchmarks and KPIs. These standards have swiftly been adopted globally through borderless communication as well as both centralised and devolved monitoring and evaluation mechanisms that have given way to the creation and dispersion of real-time data globally. Within Pakistan, Covid-19 has revealed differentiated provincial contributions in identifying and communicating new parameters to understand the implications of the crisis as well as propose new intellectual frameworks within which to view and handle the crisis. This has strengthened monitoring and evaluation systems and helped reach broad policy consensus.
The lessons learnt from this crisis can show how evaluation practices in non-crisis situations can be improved and the important role of real time data in communication for course correction.

To discuss these issues, the following speakers were invited:

Hasaan Khawar, International Development Consultant and CDPR fellow, discussed his point of view as an M&E practitioner and set the context of how the COVID-19 crisis can have practical implications for monitoring and evaluation;

Hamid Yaqub Sheikh, Chairman Planning & Development Board, Punjab, highlighted lessons from Punjab to improve decision making in the wake of challenges due to COVID-19 and role of real time communication while evaluating critical decisions;
Ghazi Ghazan Jamal, Minister, Excise and Taxation & Head of Covid-19, Rapid Response Team, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, discussed KP’s experience in handling the crisis and the need for real-time data sharing for responsive governance.