Who puts the value in Evaluation? The need for self‐reflection and transparency in advocacy and policy change evaluation

Advocacy and policy change evaluators navigate uniquely complex environments, made up of layers with many moving parts, and are actors typically in highly political spaces. Evaluators bring their unique components to the evaluation in the form of values, biases, and belief systems that are continually constructing the identities they take on within these environments. In turn, those identities influence which roles evaluators will take, such as collaborator or advocate, and bring biases that have the potential to impact their behavior and decision‐making as they evaluate advocacy and policy change endeavors. The authors of this article discuss how evaluator identity, role, and bias can impact advocacy and policy change evaluation; as well as describe how power and privilege may show up in advocacy and policy change evaluation praxis. The authors then challenge the reader to engage with teachings from Indigenous Evaluation practices that are naturally grounded in advocacy principles and employ reflexivity as a means of ensuring that their work is culturally responsive and supports the minimization of unintended harm. Finally, the authors present a reflexivity framework with the hope that this will support advocacy and policy change evaluation practitioners to be more intentional in how they critically reflect on their work, the layers of complexity in advocacy and policy change, and how their values and biases might be impacting their evaluation practice. The reflexivity framework serves to support the practice and incite further discussion on the use of reflexivity as a normal part of advocacy and policy change evaluation.