Relational was the word on everyone’s lips at the Australian Evaluation Society’s aes24 conference held 16-20 September in Naarm, Melbourne, Australia. This concept was discussed as approaches and methods to evaluation; it was used to refer to co-design and participatory methods; client and commissioning arrangements; and Pacific and First Nations ways of working.
Tetra Tech International Development was a proud Diamond sponsor of the 2024 event. This year was the most inclusive in history, with a large portion of the program including Pacific, Indigenous, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives.
We supported 21 staff members from six countries—Laos PDR, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Australia—to connect and integrate the latest research, monitoring, and evaluation work across Australia and the region with our program delivery.
Sharing experiences of relational approaches
Pictured, left to right: David Lakisa, Elizabeth Faerua, Nathan “mudyi” Sentance, Alli Burness.
It was also a topic of focus for a panel convened by Tetra Tech Director–Australian Consulting, Alli Burness, called Envisioning Relational Aboriginal and Pacific Research Futures. Alongside Lisa Faerua, a freelance consultant from Vanuatu; Nathan “mudyi” Sentance, a Wiradjuri leader, librarian, educator and Head of First Nations Collections at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences; and David Lakisa, Director of Talanoa Consulting with Samoan ancestry, the session explored the experiences of panellists in working to evolve institutions towards Polynesian, Melanesian and Aboriginal research and evaluation methods. The power of the session was revealed when it opened into a combined yarn, Storian and Talanoa with the audience of strong Pacific evaluation practitioners sharing their experiences of taking local relational approaches to their work.
Understanding ourselves as evaluators in sensemaking
Pictured, left to right: Sharon Marra-Brown, Matt Healey, Monica Wabuke, Alli Burness.
In another panel convened by Tetra Tech called The Art of Qualitative Sensemaking, Associate Director – Research, Monitoring and Evaluation (RME), Monica Wabuke, emphasised the constant need for individual reflection as an evaluation practitioner.
Alongside the critical examination of how an evaluation is evolving across complex networks of stakeholders, an evaluation impacts and changes us as individuals. A mutual exchange occurs between an evaluator and the project, and this requires constant conscious work.
Monica shared these insights alongside Sharon Marra-Brown from ARTD Consultants who spoke of the value of sensemaking within projects with lived-experience cohorts, and Matt Healey from First Person Consulting, who demonstrated the power of network mapping as a way of visualising relationships across a system. The session was a valuable example of the many cross-collaborations emerging between consultancies in our sector.
A new cohort of evaluators grows
Pictured: Amanda Mottershead.
Tetra Tech Senior Consultant–RME, Amanda Mottershead, presented a panel on supporting those new to the sector. This session discussed the varied progress, challenges, lessons and opportunities of emerging evaluator support across our region, including in the Pacific, in Australia and New Zealand and Asia more broadly.
Amanda and her fellow panellists, Qudratullah Jahid, a Senior Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Consultant at Oxford Policy Management Australia; and Eroni Wavu, MEL Officer for Pacific Women at The Pacific Community (SPC), identified key ways to successfully nurture the new generation through intraregional collaboration, capacity building, and career development support (such as shadowing and on-the-job learning).
The panel highlighted the new Australian and New Zealand chapter of the global EvalYouth network, which supports and promotes emerging evaluators and youth-led accountability around the world. By following their page on LinkedIn, you can help ensure the sustainability of high-quality evaluation practices.
Throughout the conference, our team supported sessions as Chair, including Rachel George, Director–RME, and Grace Nicholas, Associate Director–RME, supporting sessions exploring First Nations participation, partnership and co-creation in evaluation; reflections on a traditional healing service model in the Kimberley region; and the importance of recommendations in linking evaluation with future strategy.
Tetra Tech’s stall was constantly busy as we shared some of our guidance notes on Pacific evaluation methods. Pictured: Merve Hosgelen, Bill Wallace (AES CEO), Kiri Parata (Chair of AES), Rachel George, Luse Uluitavuki, Amanda Mottershead
Transforming the sector now and into the future
In her opening keynote, “Reimagining evaluation with a gender-justice lens”, June Oscar AO highlighted the importance of transforming our sector with an emphasis on humanising rather than enumerating. To achieve this, it is critical to understand the scope of relational methods, how to apply them and their role in the nexus between Western and Indigenous approaches. At Tetra Tech, this means pausing to consider how co-design and other Western participatory methods align or inter-relate with local relational methods.
Co-design is not inherently cross-cultural or culturally safe. At Tetra Tech, our integrated kinship-informed relational approach starts with Understanding Ourselves and is anchored in a Cultural Learning Framework. We strive to work in relationships beyond the binary, moving beyond center-and-periphery structures towards a broader transformation of our sector, taking guidance and leadership from local, Pacific, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners who have been finessing relational approaches for millennia.
As we collectively work out what relational approaches mean, it is a powerful time to build a new generation of evaluators and broaden the perspectives in evaluation practice. Aes24 was a strong, collective push for further establishing these approaches in a more inclusive evaluation practice, interconnected across the region. We look forward to a year ahead of supporting and envisaging the emergence of genuine relational approaches across the sector.
Images taken by Denise Ng (Tetra Tech).
