Welcome Joy, can you tell us a bit about who you are and your professional background?

I’m Joy McCarron and I have been with IOD PARC for five years, first as an intern and Researcher, then as a Consultant, and now as a Senior Consultant. Prior to joining IOD PARC I studied at the Institute of Political Science of Toulouse in France. My degree also saw me spending a year abroad, including five months in the United States with an NGO focused on supporting women, girls, and immigrant survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), which sparked a strong and enduring interest in gender equality, and more particularly in understanding systematic challenges faced by marginalised groups. I built on this interest through a subsequent semester in Sweden where I explored global perspectives on social justice and equity, broadening my awareness of gender issues in different cultural contexts. Returning to France, I completed a master’s in international cooperation and development, a programme that focused on gender and social inclusion-related issues in International Development. This focus enabled me to delve deeper into the frameworks and policies aimed at tackling global inequalities. During this time, I undertook another internship, this time centred on combating violence against women and girls in France. These experiences collectively solidified my commitment to advancing gender equality and addressing the complex dynamics of migration and social inclusion on both local and international levels.

What does your work at IOD PARC focus on?

I can’t believe it’s five years already! I started by working on a number of large country programme evaluations where I got to shadow experienced team leaders and saw how they did data collection. This then grew into taking on different roles, including more substantial data analysis and reporting. As my experience grew, I started to bid for work myself, especially in the gender and diversity, equity, and inclusion space. I started getting more and more responsibilities and got involved in large-scale and challenging evaluations, e.g., with OECD and MOPAN. I also started doing more fieldwork myself, which is critical for building knowledge and experience and helped me to understand why someone told me that if you read too many documents, you might start believing they are real.

What have you learned through our work over the past few years?

As an evaluator, one of the most interesting parts of the work is speaking directly with people. It gives them the opportunity to stop for a moment in what is otherwise often a very busy or stressful environment. An evaluation offers them the chance to open up and evaluators can sometimes be messengers for people who might otherwise have difficulty making themselves heard. They also offer us an opportunity to share the knowledge we have with clients, who often have a lot in common. For example, they can face similar challenges or barriers in relation to funding for gender equality programmes. So, while each organisation is unique, they can learn a lot from others.
It has also been surprising to see how little people know about evaluation and that it is sometimes coupled with a negative connotation. However, I feel it is important to help our clients achieve their goals by understanding what is and is not working. This means it is important to assess whether things are working periodically rather than only at the end of a process.

Can you give an example of how our work has impacted a client?

Sometimes it can be hard to know or follow up with organisations what happens once your engagement ends – especially if the operating context for these organisations suddenly changes, which happened recently with one of the clients I supported.

However, we also conducted a meta-evaluation (which is a synthesis of several evaluations) for a bilateral donor and recommended they incorporate more feminist practices in their evaluations. Now that some time has passed, we see more clients issuing requests for evaluations which pay more attention to different sources of evidence and recognise the value of different voices. Of course, we do not know if this was solely or partially due to our work, but in general, we have to push clients a bit to think about how they approach things and, in this case, help them think about what more they could be doing.

Looking back, what changes have you noticed in the sector over the past few years?

There seems to be an increasing focus on transformative approaches. This requires us as evaluators to think about how we work and the teams we put together. I see a push for younger evaluators to be included in teams, see their inputs valued, and see them getting more opportunities. Evaluation teams are getting more diverse, which opens up opportunities for knowledge sharing across team members. The use of technology is increasing, and young people are on the frontline of this. This, in turn, creates new possibilities for collecting, analysing, and understanding data. Overall, I see relations among evaluators becoming less hierarchical .

If you could design the perfect assignment for yourself, what would it look like and why?

Although I’ve broadened the areas I work in, I am still deeply committed to advancing the fight against GBV, especially in the current climate. There have been decades of advocacy and research, but there is still so much room for improvement, not only in culture and behaviours but also in policies and legal systems. I would love to carry out a global study on violence against women/GBV. The study would be multidisciplinary, involving doctors, lawyers, academia, grassroots organisations, community leaders and social sciences to ensure a holistic perspective on this issue, particularly because different perspectives bring knowledge of specific barriers and solutions. A key focus of the study would be exploring the pathways of knowledge: where research and data on GBV go and how they influence – if at all – policy changes, legal reforms, and social norms. I am particularly interested in examining the effectiveness of feminist foreign policies adopted by several countries. These policies often aim to advance women’s rights through international development assistance, yet there is an opportunity for them to learn from other nations, as well as to critically examine and address gender-based challenges within their own borders.

It’s also crucial to move beyond binary narratives that separate the issues faced by women in the global North and South. While significant differences do exist, the assumption that women in “developing countries” encounter entirely unique problems can hinder mutual learning and reflections on solutions. There are countless lessons to be drawn from successes and challenges across contexts, including identifying what works and why.

Finally, Joy, is there anything else you would like to share?

I wish I knew evaluation as a profession existed while I was still in university! A lot of the skills we learn in university are very transferable. As an evaluator, you get to learn about so many different topics. It is perfect for people with a broad interest – you can be a generalist or a specialist who looks at topics from different perspectives. For every assignment, you read about the topic, interview people, feed this back to them, etc. It is a constant learning process for yourself as well whereby you also get a lot of exposure to different organisations and topics. Evaluation, to me, is about democratising knowledge: if money is spent on something, then communities should be able to know whether things work or not – as evaluators, we unlock this knowledge.