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Thursday, 23 October 2025
8:00 am - 9:15 am ET
How can evaluation shape a future-fit United Nations?
Marking the United Nations' 80th anniversary, the third Future of Evaluation dialogue on 23 October 2025 will examine evaluation's pivotal role in forging a future-fit United Nations by ensuring accountability, adaptation and continuous learning. The dialogue will explore how evaluation can further enhance the United Nations’ organizational effectiveness, efficiency, accountability and agility. This includes adopting adaptive approaches for evaluating complex systems and exploring how joint interagency work can strengthen both multilateralism and the global evaluation ecosystem.
Across these themes, the dialogue will explore meaningful youth engagement and the ethical use of AI to catalyze transformative change in evaluation. Overall, the event will unpack how a robust evaluation culture can ensure the United Nations remains relevant, resilient, and effective in promoting sustainable development for all.
Moderator
Tessie Tzavaras Catsambas is the founder and CEO/CFO of EnCompass LLC, which is a 25-year-old organization working in evaluation, learning and leadership development. She was the President of the American Evaluation Association in 2019. Tessie published books on appreciative evaluation and evaluation management. She holds a masters of public policy from Harvard University.
Panelists
Dr Julia Betts has worked as an evaluator for over 20 years. She specializes in evaluations of humanitarian assistance, especially in conflict-affected situations, and in gender and equity concerns. Julia has lived in countries including El Salvador, Malawi and India, working for agencies including the former DFID. She has a doctorate in international education from the University of Oxford, UK. Julia has conducted several independent evaluations of WFP policies and programmes since 2016. She led the 2021 evaluation of its COVID-19 response and the 2018 evaluation of its Syrian regional response.
Taipei Dlamini is an Evaluation Specialist at UNESCO. She manages evaluations of UNESCO programmes and strategies in education, science, culture and communication and builds evaluation capacity among staff. She also co-convenes the United Nations Evaluation Group’s (UNEG) Young and Emerging Evaluators working group since 2024. She holds a Master’s degree in International Law and Administration. Connect with Taipei on LinkedIn.
Messay Tassew is an evaluation professional with over seventeen years of experience across headquarters and field offices. He currently works in the UNFPA Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) in Nairobi, leading centralized evaluations on key thematic priorities. Previously, he was the Regional Evaluation Advisor for Africa at the UNDP IEO and an Evaluation Specialist at UNFPA IEO in New York, where he supported decentralized evaluations and managed corporate-level thematic evaluations. He also held evaluation roles at UN Women’s Independent Evaluation Service in New York, overseeing decentralized functions and co-leading centralized evaluations.
Nea-Mari Heinonen is working as Lead Evaluation Specialist, managing external centralized and strategic evaluations commissioned by the independent Development Evaluation Unit of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She has over 15 years of experience in international development policy and cooperation, with specialization in planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning. She has piloted data science and AI techniques in the Ministry. Between 2008 and 2010, she worked for the UNFPA Uganda country office as an M&E Officer. Nea-Mari currently pursues her PhD at the University of Helsinki in social data science, conducting research on the perceptions of civil servants regarding AI-assisted evaluative evidence. Connect with Nea-Mari on LinkedIn.
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