Reports / Reports

5th Wave: Social Impact Evaluation

This working paper describes evaluation as a growth industry in rapid transformation. Given the twin challenges of increased inequality and results orientation a new generation of evaluators will have to learn to surf a social impact wave.  Given the rise of emerging market countries, they will be called upon to move the center of gravity of the discipline south and east. Given the complexity of development challenges, they will have to replenish the evaluation toolkit. Given the advent of big data and the spread of social networking, they will tap the vast opportunities of a ‘plugged in’ world. Finally, given the advent of results-oriented networks, they will forge resilient connections between public, private, and civil society actors in pursuit of collective impact.