Date and time: Thursday 20 March 2025, 12.30pm - 1.30pm AEST
Topic: Embracing the L in "MEL": A Journey Towards Participatory Evaluation in Government Programs
Presenter: Milena Gongora, Great Barrier Reef Foundation
Venue: Via Zoom. Details will be emailed to registrants just prior to the start time
Register online by: Wednesday 19 March 2025

Event overview

Milena will present her aes24 conference paper and invite further discussion and questions on the Great Barrier Reef Foundation's journey towards participatory evaluation.

ABSTRACT
Best practice in evaluation encompasses a crucial step of learning, yet it often receives inadequate emphasis, particularly within government-funded initiatives. Our paper documents the journey of transforming a top-down, prescriptive evaluation process within a government-funded program into an inclusive, consultative approach aligned with Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) principles.

Funded by Australian Government, and managed by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, the Reef Trust Partnership (RTP) launched in 2018 aiming to enhance the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef. Within it, a $200 million portfolio aims to improve water quality working with the agricultural industry. A framework for impact evaluation was developed in its early days. Whilst appropriate, due to the need to comply with broader government requirements, it was top-down in nature.

Four years into implementation, the Foundation was ready to synthesise, interpret and report on the program's impact. The Foundation could have simply reported "up" to government. However, we acknowledged that in doing so, we risked missing critical context, simplifying findings, misinterpreting information and presenting yet another tokenistic meaningless report.

Interested in doing things better, we instead circled back with our stakeholders in a participatory reflection process. Through a series of carefully planned workshops, we invited on-ground program practitioners to ground-truth our findings, share contextual nuances, and collectively strategise for future improvements.

Despite initial reservations, participants embraced the opportunity, fostering an atmosphere of open dialogue and knowledge exchange. This reflective process not only enriched our understanding of program impact but also enhanced collaboration, strengthening overall program outcomes.

Our experience highlights the importance of transcending tokenistic evaluation practices, particularly in environments where top-down directives prevail. Participatory approaches can be implemented at any scale, contributing to a culture of continuous improvement and strategic learning, ultimately enhancing the impact and relevance of evaluation efforts

Presenter details

Milena’s area of interest is nature conservation. With over 14 years of experience, her work ranges from managing the Mekong River to enhancing the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef. Over most of this time, her roles have involved evaluating the success of conservation initiatives, as well as designing and delivering programs building on these learnings. Through this career, Milena has witnessed how good evaluation and a will to incorporate its learnings can be transformative to a field. Yet, she believes more could be done!

Milena is the Associate Director for the Reef Trust Partnership Water Quality Program at the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a non-for-profit dedicated to protecting the Reef. Her presentation is based on this work. She is also a Senior Consultant with Alluvium Consulting.

This event has been organised by the QLD Regional Network. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators.

Please ensure you have access to your email address to receive the zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting.

This session will be added to our Youtube channel approximately 4 weeks after it's recorded. Please subscribe to ensure you are notified when a new video is added.

Seminar start times

• QLD: 12.30pm

• VIC, NSW, ACT, TAS: 1.30pm

• SA: 1.00pm

• NT: 12.00pm

• WA: 10.30am

• New Zealand: 3.30pm

For other time zones please go to https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Please ensure you have access to your email address just prior to the start time to access Zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting. Thanks.