Sustainable Development is the key issue for humanity’s future on planet Earth. There is solid scientific evidence that our current trajectory of unbound economic growth based on non-renewable resources and social and economic exploitation is unsustainable in the longer run. This is abundantly clear for climate change, which will affect the poor of the world the hardest. “Business as usual” needs transformational change in order to go for and support a sustainable world.

Sustainability is subject of major research programmes and transdisciplinary work in universities, think tanks and research institutes, in civil society organisations and the private sector. Much of this work has been inspired by climate science and focuses on Earth systems, ecological systems and interaction of the social, economic and environmental domains. Findings tend to be characterised by focusing on how systems operate and interact and on complexity in development and interaction of systems. A fundamental insight is that sustainable development is a different kind of development – a paradigm shift from unbound neoliberal economic growth to sustainable development that is based, amongst others, on heterodox economic science perspectives (institutional, doughnut and evolutionary economics, to name a few).

Evaluation has delivered evidence on how transformation can take shape and be designed and supported. The IDEAS publication Transformational Evaluation for the Global Crises of Our Times brings together many authors exploring the role of evaluation to support fundamental change of development trajectories. The book launch will provide an overview of what is discussed in the book, which can be explored freely as the book and its chapters are available as open access on the website of IDEAS (and printed copies can be ordered from Amazon.co.uk).

The revision of the role of evaluation in supporting transformational changes is linked to a new perspective on ethics for evaluation. The second book is published by Routledge and titled Ethics for Evaluation: Beyond ‘Doing No Harm’, ‘Tackling Bad’ and ‘Doing Good’. This book contains a range of chapters exploring how ethical guidance for evaluation has taken shape over time, with “doing no harm” as a positivist and un-biased neutral scientific perspective that has long been dominant. The global crises of our times have provided a strong push for evaluators to explore what evaluations can contribute if they encounter “bad” situations or if they uncover evidence or knowledge that can support transformational changes.

Both books also explore the pandemic and what it teaches us about the need for transformation.

The book launch will offer an opportunity for questions and answers, moderated by Dr Natarajan.

This event will take place in Bush House Lecture Theatre 1 at King's College London.

About the speakers

Professor Rob D. van den Berg (presenter)

Rob D. van den Berg is Visiting Professor at the Department for International Development of King’s College, London, as well as an Honorary Associate of the Institute of Development Studies in Brighton. He serves as a member of the Advisory Group on Evaluation and Learning of the Climate Investment Funds, the Steering Committee of the Transformational Change Learning Partnership and the Evaluation Advisory Panel of IFAD. On 1 April 2020 his second and last term as President of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) ended. Rob is a member of the Wilton Park Advisory Council.

He has had a long career in international development, first at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, where from 1999-2004 he was Director of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department. From 2004-2014 he was Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility at the World Bank in Washington DC, followed by six years as President of the International Development Evaluation Association IDEAS. He has been involved in the DAC Evaluation Network, which he chaired from 2002-2004, and the Evaluation Cooperation Group of the multilateral banks, as well as the UN Evaluation Group.

Rob has published more than 30 articles and chapters and co-edited eight books, on subjects ranging from the history of development to research funding and evaluation issues, especially in the light of sustainable development and the need for transformational change.

Professor Myles Wickstead (commentator)

Myles has a long history of involvement with, and working in, Africa. Between 1993 and 1997 he was based in Nairobi as Head of the British Development Division in Eastern Africa, responsible for British Government development programmes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. He coordinated the 1997 British Government White Paper 'Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century’; served on the Board of the World Bank (and as Development Counsellor at the British Embassy) in Washington from 1997 to 2000; and from 2000 to 2004 was based in Addis Ababa as British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Djibouti and the African Union. He was, from early 2004 to late 2005, Head of Secretariat to the Commission for Africa (CfA). The Commission’s Report ‘Our Common Interest’ formed the basis of the G8 Gleneagles Communique on Africa. The Commission in September 2010 produced a further Report ‘Still Our Common Interest’ to report on progress against the CfA’s recommendations.

Myles left Government service in late 2005. He became Chair of CONCERN UK, One World Media and Independent Vice-Chair of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. He has been a Board member of the British Institute in Eastern Africa; the Crown Agents’ Foundation; the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET); the Development Studies Association; the Comic Relief International Grants Committee; International Inspiration; Enterprise for Development; the Baring Foundation; and Restless Development. He was on the Advisory Council of Wilton Park, where he was from April-December 2017 also Acting Chief Executive; Honorary Vice-President of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO); and Non-Executive Director of ‘Development Initiatives’. He has been a Specialist Advisor to the Parliamentary International Development Select Committee.

Myles is currently Visiting Professor (International Relations) at King’s College London and Honorary Associate Professor at the Strategy and Security Institute, University of Exeter. He is Chair of the Joffe Charitable Trust. He is on the Boards of the Royal African Society and BBC Media Action; and Honorary Advisor to Malaria No More UK, the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET), and the Coalition for Global Prosperity. He has written extensively on Africa and development. His book ‘Aid and Development: A Brief Introduction’ was published by OUP in June 2015.

Myles has degrees from the Universities of St Andrews (MA First Class Honours) and Oxford (M.Litt), and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by Leeds Beckett University, the University of Ulster and the Open University (where he was also a Visiting Professor) in recognition of his work on Africa and development. In the New Year’s Honours 2006 he was appointed CBE and in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2021 he was appointed KCMG.

Chair

Dr Nithya Natarajan 

Dr Nithya Natarajan is a Lecturer in International Development. Her work focuses on South India and Cambodia, and explores agrarian change, rural-urban livelihoods, labour precarity, gender and debt.

She completed an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded PhD at SOAS, University of London, and a postdoctoral research position at Royal Holloway as part of the ESRC-Department for International Development (DfID)-funded ‘Blood Bricks’ research project.

Nithya is a co-investigator on the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF)-funded project ‘Depleted by debt? Focusing a gendered lens on climate, credit and nutrition in translocal Cambodia and South India.’

Her work features in a range of journal articles, book chapters and edited volumes. She has also engaged with policy and activist outputs in disseminating her research, notably in Open Democracy, through a Home Affairs Select Committee submission regarding the UK Modern Slavery Act. Additionally, she is part of a team working to submit a petition to the United Nations Business and Human Rights Working Group with regard to her work on the Cambodian construction sector.

She also has extensive teaching experience, having taught in the Development Studies and Politics and International Studies departments at SOAS, University of London and in the Department of Geography, King’s College London prior to joining in the Department of International Development.

References

Van den Berg, Rob D., Cristina Magro and Marie-Hélène Adrien (eds.) (2021). Transformational Evaluation for the Global Crises of Our Times. Exeter, UK, IDEAS. https://tinyurl.com/3863febh.

Van den Berg, Rob D., Penny Hawkins and Nicoletta Stame (eds.) (2021). Ethics for Evaluation: Beyond ‘Doing No Harm’, ‘Tackling Bad’ and ‘Doing Good’. New York (etc.), Routledge.