
In the first of its kind social media outreach in the evaluation community, more than 700 VOPEs (Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation), EvalYouth chapters, young and emerging evaluators, parliamentarian networks, UN agencies, NGOs, the private sector, academia and others converged at the Eval4Action Tweetathon on 7 April 2021. In the lead up to the event and during it, about 14,000 tweets led to 105 million impressions, putting worldwide attention on the importance of accelerating influential evaluation in the Decade of Action. The Tweetathon also marked one year of the Eval4Action campaign.

The 24-hour global conversation was kicked off by the global co-leaders UNFPA Evaluation Office, EvalYouth Global Network, Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation, and were joined by IOCE and EvalPartners. This was followed by seven Q&A regional dialogues, led by the:
Asia Pacific Evaluation Association (APEA) and EvalYouth Asia in the Asia Pacific
Eurasian Alliance of National Evaluation Associations (EvalEurasia) and EvalYouth chapter for Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and South Caucasus in Eurasia
Middle East and North Africa Evaluation Network (EvalMENA) and EvalYouth MENA chapter in MENA
European Evaluation Society in Europe
African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) and the Africa wide young and emerging evaluators network (AfrEA-YEE) in Africa
EvalYouth LAC chapter in Latin America and the Caribbean; and
American Evaluation Association (AEA), Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) and the Academia Nacional de Evaluadores de Mexico (ACEVAL) in North America.
As the Eval4Action torch went across the world, participants joined from more than 80 countries and engaged in more than 10 languages, widely amplifying the call for accelerating action for influential evaluation. To catch the Tweetathon highlights, see the Twitter Moment.
As a follow up to this engagement, and to the Eval4Action Commitment Drive held last year, a Walk the Talk video drive will be held in October 2021. This new initiative invites everyone to showcase actions delivered to accelerate influential evaluation. This is because the Decade of Action is also the decade of delivery, to supercharge all actions and solutions towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by their 2030 deadline. The Eval4Action campaign is intensifying efforts to galvanise this momentum in the evaluation community and beyond, to inform a sustainable and equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
For a deeper look at the Tweetathon conversation, see a snapshot of responses to the four questions that framed the all-day global conversation:
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