Presentations &
Publications

PRESENTATIONS

Women’s Club of Richmond. 2023. “Sustainability: How to help it happen” The 1-hour presentation covers how ex-post-project sustainability has and has not been evaluated and learned from, and what investing in any grassroots charities should consider.

Gates India, 2022 Meghalaya Evaluation Summer School “Thinking Explicitly about Sustainability Up Front:” The sessions focus on how monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes can help the Indian State and Districts navigate toward desired outcomes, including using Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation. August 2022

European Evaluation Society Conference ‘Evaluation at a Watershed: Actions and Shifting Paradigms for Challenging Times, Presentation “Long- And Short-Term Dilemmas In Sustainability Evaluations” Copenhagen, June ’22

Dopady udržitelnosti v byznysu (česky); Smarthead Seminar on Sustainablity Results on Business ​Udržitelnost (in Czech) Zárí/ Sept ’21

“How To Know About Longer-term Effects From Adaptation Initiatives?” European Evaluation Society Roundtable, Sept ’21

“Planning for Sustainability: Towards a Role for Evaluations and Measurement in Planning Exit Strategies” University of Toronto’s Evaluation Centre, Mar ’21

“Lessons from Nordic and the Netherlands’ ex-post project evaluations” Webinar and Mighty Networks Sustainability Network, Jan ’21

“Exiting for Sustainability” Valuing Voices Webinar Series and Mighty Networks Sustainability Network, Nov ’20, Dec ’20

“Why Measure and Evaluate Corporate Sustainability Projects?” Smarthead Talks, Dec ’20

“Sustaining All of our Hard Work: Planning a Sustainable #Exit from the Start” at the Vienna Evaluation Network,  Oct ’20.

Anglo-American University Eco-Week, Presentation on Climate & Food Security, Prague, Czech Rep. Nov ’19

USAID Local Solutions Co-Creation Workshop, on the Changing Role of the Donor Oct ’19

IDEAS Conference and the 3rd International Conference on Environment “Sustaining Climate Action: issues in Verifying Post project Impacts in Climate Change Mitigation” Prague, Czech Rep. Oct ’19

University of Toronto, Towards a Science of Evaluation July ’19

Universities of Oxford & Cambridge, Prague Speaker Series, Feb ’19

Wonder Woman Tech Conference Speaker/ Mentor, #WeAreFuture, London

European Evaluation Society bi-annual Conference, Thessaloniki, Oct ’18:

• Panel: How Sustained and Resilient are our Impacts? (w/World Bank, DFAT, Oxford)
• Round-table: Accountability in Evaluation for Sustained and Resilient Impacts
• Panel: Navigating Spectacular Ambitions: The Importance of Thinking Evaluatively in Challenging the Sustainable Development Goals of “No One Left Behind”
• Panel: Participatory Approaches to Resilience Measurement: Who are we Listening to?

US Agency for International Development, Local Systems Community “Sustainable Development? Prove It! Improve It!” (via Adobe Connect w/Flash) Nov ’17

University of Toronto, Evaluation Centre, “Sustained and Emerging Impacts Evaluation” Presentation Apr ’17

SEIE Webinar for DME for Peace: “Built to last? Embedding sustainability in the project cycle”  Webinar Presentation Mar ’17

CARE International Eastern Central Southern African (ECSA) Strategic Conference, Nairobi, Invited to Present Dec ’16

American Evaluation Association (Oct ’16, Atlanta): Panel: Barking up a Better Tree: Lessons about Sustained and Emergent Impact Evaluations (SEIE) presentation (Cekan, Rogers B, Rogers P, Zivetz)

European Evaluation Society (Sept ’16, Maastricht the Netherlands):

* Workshop on Sustained and Emerging Impact Evaluation and Evaluative Thinking (Cekan w/ Sharrock)

* Panel: Sustaining development impact in an era of sustainable development goals (SDGs): wishful thinking, or a bright future? (w/Davies, Ofir, Sridharan)

* Panel: The fourth industrial revolution, the 2030 agenda and the “grand challenges” for evaluation (w/Sridharan, Davies, Ofir)

Webinar on Post-project Sustainability and well-planned Project Exit with INTRAC from 49m (Sept ’16, UK) (Cekan/Zivetz, Pallas with Hayman)

International Society for Performance Improvement at 2016 Conference, Developing Countries track Presenter on “Learning from the Past for an Improved International Future” Apr ’16

International Year of Evaluation, YouTube Jindra Cekan’s EvalStory (2015)

CRS Worldwide Webinar “Learning from How it All Turned Out” Oct ’15 presenting CRS Niger, Post-Project Evaluation of food security projects”.

Sirius XM Radio/U Penn Wharton Business School “Dollars and Change” program Audio Presentation on “Social Impact and Sustainability Interview“, Mar ’15

Czech Evaluation Society Presenter on “Post-Project Sustainable Evaluation”, June ’15 Conference

Wangeningen M&E for Responsible Innovation Conference Presenter on “Who’s Listening? Community-Led Self-Sustainability Post-Project Evaluation” Holland. Mar 15r

Two presentations at the American Evaluation Association’s Annual Conference (Colorado, USA) Oct ’14”When do we Value Participant Voices for Sustained Impact? Now!” and “Evaluation of international capacity building efforts toward fostering sustainable solutions”

The World Bank Group, Spring Meetings, Civil Society Forum Panelist Apr ’14 “Engaging NGOs/CSOs in Economic Development and Public Policy Dialogues for Sustainable Development” Session

Ethiopian Red Cross, “Food Security Final Evaluation and Sustainable Future Design” (2014)

Cornell University, Institute for African Development Seminar Series “Monitoring and Evaluation: Listening to One’s Clients Ex-post” (2013) link

Appreciative Inquiry group of DC. Presentation on using Appreciative Inquiry for Organizational Learning at USAID’s Policy Planning and Learning and 13 other Bureaus (2013) link

Society for International Development on the Power of the Appreciative Question regarding the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Advocacy Evaluation (2009) link

CRS Participatory Rural Appraisal/ Rapid Rural Appraisal (PRA/RRA)including a food security chapter by Cekan (2008)

Many others in the previous 20 years including at US Dept. of Agriculture, AAAS, InterAction’s African Global Forum, UNICEF, John F. Kennedy School of Government- Harvard University, the Red Cross/ Red Crescent Africa meetings, University of Cambridge (UK).

IMPORTANT GUIDANCE

RE: EX-POST EVALUATION:

Preconditions to consider for doing an SEIE either at project end or during project design and implementation by Valuing Voices: Evaluability Checklists (2017)

Sustained and Emerging Impacts Evaluation (SEIE) overview of a new thematic approach to post-project/ ex-post evaluation SEIE Guidance

Adaptation Fund Ex-post Evaluation process and training for sustainability and resilience to climate change (2021)

Building the Evidence Base for Post-Project Evaluation, a report to Michael Scriven’s Faster Forward Fund (2017)

World Health Organization ex-post project manual! They drew on our research and made a great guide: * UN’s WHO Practical Guidance for Conducting Post-Project Evaluations in Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (2019)

Tips for Ex Post Evaluations of International Development Projects by LWR & WV (2020)

Project Concern International Resource Guide for Enhancing the Potential for Sustainable Impact (2014)

Sustained and Emerging Impacts Evaluation (SEIE) overview of new thematic approach to post-project/ ex-post evaluation SEIE Guidance

Evaluating the Sustainability of Health Programs: A Literature Review. African Evaluation Journal, by Ishola and Cekan, 2019.

USAID Ex-post Evaluation Discussion Note (2021)

One of my videos presenting on ex-post project at University of Toronto 2017*

International Year of Evaluation Cekan EvalStory

Our Youtube videos ValuingVoices videos