The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM), represented by its Vice-President, Hon. Belal Qasem, participated and contributed to the 8th Middle East and North Africa Evaluators Network (EvalMENA) Conference 2020. The conference, dedicated to “Evaluation for Sustainability and Change”, took place from 28 February to 1 March 2020 at the King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Centre on the Dead Sea.
The meeting, sponsored by the State of Palestine, was organized with the support of local and international partners, including UNICEF, World Food Program and FAO, and held under the auspices of the Palestinian Evaluation Association.
During his intervention at the opening session, Hon. Qasem, speaking on behalf of PAM, referred to the importance of evaluation in stimulating work and achieving results in the stage of building State institutions and the challenges ahead.
Some 50 speakers addressed national and international experts from 15 countries. The programme of the event included training workshops and various sessions aimed at spreading the culture of evaluation and its role in achieving SDGs, in order to ensure the optimal use of resources, in addition to improving academic and development programs.
The conference dealt with different themes, among others: the use of focused evaluation in the MENA region; the role of the stakeholders in evaluation; the evaluation of resilience and Climate Change, evaluators’ competencies and professionalization in MENA region beyond 2020; new trends in evaluation, innovative methodologies and related challenges.
The Middle East and North Africa Evaluators Network (EvalMENA) was established in 2011 to offer development evaluation in the MENA region by catalysing new thinking and adapting innovative approaches, with a particular emphasis on increasing the body of knowledge on evaluation in the Arabic language. The network includes eight Arab associations from the countries of the Middle East and North Africa.
On the side of the conference, Hon. Belal Qasem also participated at a major television programme at which we presented the activities and mandate of PAM, including its ongoing projects dedicated to the support of SMEs, to academic and research cooperation, and to the internship programme for students from the MENA region.