Global Evaluation Agenda 2.0 and Indigenous Evaluation: Building Relationships for a Future-Fit Field

In November 2025, I had the privilege of speaking at the 5th Asia Pacific Evaluation Association (APEA) Conference in Tokyo as part of the interactive panel session: "Advancing the Global Evaluation Agenda (GEA) 2.0: Pathways and Road-Maps for Action and Synergies"

The session brought together leaders from EvalPartners, IOCE, APEA, UN agencies, youth networks, and evaluation associations across Asia and beyond. We were invited to respond to key questions: What are the focus areas of GEA 2.0? Why do they matter now? Who are the actors? What pathways and synergies are needed? and What challenges lie ahead? As Co-Chair of EvalIndigenous, my contribution focused on what GEA 2.0 means for Indigenous evaluation — and what Indigenous evaluation offers to GEA 2.0. This post talks about the GEA 2.0.

What is the GEA 2.0

The Global Evaluation Agenda 2.0 (GEA 2.0), launched in 2025, is a shared global framework designed to make evaluation “future-fit” in a time of polycrisis — climate change, widening inequality, conflict, democratic fragility, and accelerating technological change. It builds on GEA 1.0 but moves further: from strengthening evaluation systems to transforming evaluation so it can contribute meaningfully to: 

People   -   Planet   -   Prosperity   -   Peace

GEA 2.0 is structured around four mutually reinforcing dimensions:

1. Enabling Environment for Evaluation
2. Institutional and Organisational Capacities
3. Individual Capabilities
4. Key Catalytic Actions and Synergies

Importantly, GEA 2.0 explicitly calls for evaluation to be grounded in equity, gender equality, social and environmental justice, cultural sensitivity, and human rights. It also recognizes Indigenous knowledge systems and the importance of protecting them, consistent with UNDRIP (the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) and the EvalIndigenous Wolastoq Declaration. ​GEA 2.0 is not a technical refresh. It is, as the Preface notes, “a profound call to transformation”

Why GEA 2.0 Matters for Indigenous Evaluation

In Tokyo, I suggested that for Indigenous peoples, the “transformation” called for in GEA 2.0 is not new. It has always been our starting point. Indigenous evaluation traditions are grounded in Relationships, Reciprocity, Collective Wellbeing and Intergenerational Responsibility. GEA 2.0’s four dimensions align strongly with Indigenous priorities.

1. Enabling Environment

GEA 2.0 calls for enabling environments that institutionalise evaluation, promote equity and justice, and protect Indigenous knowledge systems. From an Indigenous perspective, an enabling environment must:

1. Honour Indigenous Rights
2. Protect Knowledge Sovereignty
3. Mobilise Traditional Paradigms

​​​An evaluation environment that ignores Indigenous governance is not enabling.

​2. Institutional and Organizational Capacities

GEA 2.0 emphasizes strong institutions, partnerships, and ethical practice. For Indigenous evaluation, this means:

1. Embedding Indigenous governance in evaluation systems
2. Supporting Indigenous-led methodologies
3. Building institutions that are accountable to communities

3. Individual Capabilities

GEA 2.0 calls for evaluators who are culturally responsive, ethically grounded, and systems-aware. Indigenous evaluation extends this further. Individual capability includes:

1. Cultural humility
2. The ability to walk between knowledge systems
3. Commitment to intergenerational learning
4. Accountability to place, ancestors, and future generations

4. Catalytic Actions and Synergies

GEA 2.0 explicitly includes support for Indigenous-led evaluation networks and culturally responsive evidence. This is significant. Indigenous evaluation is not a niche theme—it is identified as catalytic for the entire ecosystem.

Conclusion

Taken together, these four dimensions show that Indigenous evaluation is not peripheral to GEA 2.0, but deeply aligned with its transformative intent. For Indigenous peoples, evaluation has always been about sustaining relationships — with People and our non-human relations, with Mother Earth, and across generations — so that collective Prosperity is shared and Peace is grounded in justice and decolonisation. Seeking to indigenise the evaluation system does not mean replacing one framework with another; it means embedding reciprocity, relational accountability, knowledge sovereignty, and intergenerational responsibility at the heart of evaluation practice. When these values shape enabling environments, institutions, individual capabilities, and catalytic action, evaluation becomes a force for restoring balance and guiding systems transformation. What works for Indigenous peoples—relational, rights-based, and regenerative evaluation—ultimately strengthens evaluation for all peoples and for the planet we share.

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Fiona Cram, Co-Chair, EvalIndigenous

I am an Indigenous evaluation scholar based in Aotearoa New Zealand. My work seeks to advance Indigenous-led methodologies and advocates for Indigenous rights, knowledge sovereignty, and relational accountability within global evaluation systems.