EvalFest 2018 (7-9 February, 2018, New Delhi) was designed as an event to contribute to evaluation capacity building by sharing knowledge about the best practices, approaches and evaluation methods that are participatory, contextual, replicable and adaptable. This event was conceptualized with the belief that every stakeholder involved with the process of development had something critical and mutually reinforcing to bring to the field of evaluation. The event was envisaged to be inclusive and participatory for a range of actors from beneficiaries through evaluators to policymakers. EvalFest provided the convening space to bring them together to have collective ideas that would help build common understanding of the importance of evaluation, how it was done and its usefulness for learning and making improvements by sharing knowledge and perspectives.
EvalFest 2018 was conceptualized as a small step in the direction of promoting an evaluation culture in the country so that all stakeholders such as policy-makers, program managers, evaluation practitioners, non-governmental organizations, academia and most importantly the community are convinced about the process and practice of evaluation and accept it as means to evidence-informed decision-making and dissemination of information. It was also intended as a platform to co-produce and share knowledge and build partnerships with various stakeholders to ensure that evaluation and evidence use became corner-stones in working towards achieving global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), thus contributing to evaluation capacity building. Visibility, Voice and Value in evaluations were the over-arching principles governing EvalFest.