PUBLICATION | SEPTEMBER 2021

Pushing Boundaries: Advocacy Evaluation and Real-Time Learning in an HIV Prevention Research Advocacy Coalition in sub-Saharan Africa

New Directions in Evaluation

By  Jules Dasmariñas and Rhonda Schlangen

Evaluation processes that facilitate learning among advocates must be nimble, creative, and meaningful while transcending putative performance and accountability management. This article describes the experience, lessons, and trajectory of one such approach, Simple, Participatory Assessment of Real Change (SPARC). SPARC was pilot-tested in sub-Saharan Africa by a transnational HIV prevention research advocacy coalition. Inspired by the pioneering work of the outcome harvesting (OH) and participatory evaluation community, we recuperate advocates’ centrality as storytellers, sense-makers, and strategists in advocacy evaluation and describe how we recalibrated SPARC to meet their evaluation and learning needs.

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