aes26 International Evaluation Conference

Author: Alice Muller, World Vision
Evaluators and development practitioners need to understand how environmental changes impact and result from development programming.  Often finding practical ways to do is a challenge, particularly where complex environmental, biodiversity and climate systems are involved, and where evaluators and practitioners come from social or economic backgrounds with limited biophysical or ecological training. This paper shares how we can better value place and understand environmental consequences in international development projects by letting evaluations be locally-led, with local knowledge and values at the center.

Drawing on real‑world examples from World Vision’s Regreening Communities work, the paper presents three simple tools used by communities t Together, these approaches value place by centring local and Indigenous knowledge and values, assessing change from a local perspective, in a standardised way and using spatial tools that together still contribute to organisational‑level evidence.

First, a community mapping and planning exercise makes space for diverse groups within a community to define what regreening and wellbeing mean in their own environments, surfacing cultural, livelihood and social values that are often invisible in standard indicator frameworks. Second, a community‑assessed Regreening Index provides a structured and repeatable way to assess biophysical conditions and trends over time in relation to community priorities, while still enabling consistent comparison across sites and projects. Third, spatial mapping of regreening sites using a powerful, but freely available tool adapted from the WASH sector, enables evaluators to examine patterns and cumulative effects at project and organisational levels.

While none of these tools is unique in isolation, when combined they lower barriers to including environmental considerations in evaluation practice and generate insights that strengthen learning, adaptive management and sustainability discussions, ethically. The presentation will share engaging practical examples and invite participants to reflect on opportunities to better value place within their own work.