Did you know that each year, private sector, impact investing, and other social finance actors drive $12 Trillion toward social and environmental benefit yet, aren’t beholden to the same levels of accountability as government finance? With the rapid growth of these investments over the last decade, the risk of impact washing, green washing and rainbow washing is a real challenge to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

It is clear today that the business of doing good is no longer limited to the public sector. How can the evaluator toolkit and mindset support accountability and transparency across these stakeholders? What are applicable and relevant methodological approaches that can be deployed to measure, manage and validate social and environmental benefits as well as contribute to managing the risk of harm? What are the critical questions that need to be asked to ensure that results drive equitable outcomes?

During this workshop, we will address these questions while exploring both the demand and supply side of generating evidence, validating results, and promoting use of data in decision making in this new area. We will also learn practical M&E skills that can be applied and/or tailored to meet the needs of these newer stakeholders. Finally, we will ground-truth concepts and theories through discussions of key cases, highlighting the challenges and opportunities for evaluators in the age of social finance and ESG.

Learning Outcomes:

·       KNOWLEDGE: To understand the best practices, norms and key features in evaluation for social finance, and under what conditions different approaches apply.

·       TOOLS: To introduce the concept of impact measurement and management (IMM) and where IMM converge and diverge from the current evaluator toolkit and mindset.

·       SKILLS: To develop the critical skills needed to ensure evaluators are able to navigate, negotiate and facilitate their way through this new segment of the evaluation market.

·       USE: To unpack where evaluation skills, principles and standards can be used to strengthen decision-making and influence how this capital is deployed.