The final day of the APEA Conference was spent at the Philippines' House of Representatives. The objectives of this day were to:

• Raise awareness on the institutionalization of monitoring and evaluation for the agenda 2030, and
• Promote dialogue between parliamentarians, government, evaluation practitioners, and civil society to encourage their joint use of evaluations for evidence-based decision making.

Many prestigious speakers spoke, including a keynote address from Hon. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Philippines.
     The Manila Declaration was launched and we were invited to sign it. You can see video clips of the speeches from the day, and also sign the Declaration here. 

This panel, moderated by Oyuntsetseg Chuluundorj (Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor, UN Population Fund Asia and Pacific Office), consisted of Fiona (see my presentation below), Rituu Nanda (Participatory Evaluation Advisor), Elene Cloete (Director of Research and Advocacy, Outreach International), Svetlana Negroustoueva (Led, Evaluation at Independent Advisory and Evaluation Service, CGIAR), Melissa Burgess (Director of Research and Evaluation, Save the Children International), and Henk Van Beers (Global Child Participation Lead, Save the Children International). It was an honour to sit among these wonderful people who are so committed to inclusive evaluation practice. Here are some of the messages the panel shared (with a disclaimer that these are largely in my own words):

• It's important that we support communities to reclaim agency so that any transformation is community-led. This includes data sovereignty, where communities own and use their own data.
• It's the right of children to be involved in research and evaluation, and to lead their own participation. Child-led means children controlling the process and adults being facilitators only. The Save the Children website sets out nine basic requirements for meaningful and ethical children's participation.
• One of our jobs as evaluators is to spark curiosity about how research and evaluation can support people, including children, to achieve their aspirations. This includes using and sharing methods that help people document whether initiatives have supported the improvements they want to see.
• So, we need to consider the strengths and goodness in people, and also prepare for uncertainty as we will no longer be 'in charge'.
• Careful thought may need to be given to ensuring safe spaces for people to fully participate in research and evaluation. It may not be safe, for example, for people to be seen coming and going from a place/building. 
• Communities of practice can enrich learning and build social capital, with the energy of those leading these communities being important to sustaining them and ensuring their vitality.
  
• Social network analysis is one method we can use to evaluate whether communities of practice and platforms designed to connect organisations and communities are working.

In the second session of the Conference, Henrique Pissaia de Souza (New Development Bank) and Marco Segone (United Nations Population Fund) gave keynote addresses. Takeaways included:

• The importance of developing countries helping developing countries, where all are shareholders and not donors or receivers of funding.
• Having Parliamentarians as the Directors of the New Development Bank means an iterative, step-by-step approach can be taken to supplying help, so that developing countries learn-by-doing.
• The world is experiencing a multi-directional, interconnected economic crisis and a rebalancing of power. Progress on the SDGs is off-track, so we need to change tack, step-up and accelerate progress, with evaluation included as a strategic investment.
• Evaluation is being codified in policies and investments are being made in evaluation capacity development.
• Intergenerational partnerships are pivotal to the creation of national evaluation ecosystems.
• Evaluations need to be co-led, co-designed and delivered with Indigenous evaluators.

In early December 2023, we (Serge Eric and Fiona, Co-Chairs of EvalIndigenous) attended the 4th APEA Conference in Manila. The theme of the conference was ‘Future of Evaluation: Leveraging Partnerships for Equitable Development in Asia Pacific’. We arrived with our newly minted EvalIndigenous banner, which we placed in a prominent position near the registration area. The photo opportunity was too great, and we persuaded a number of people to have their picture taken with us and our banner.