Georgetown Executive Training Opportunity to Boost Effectiveness and Assess Impact of Social Programs

A new comprehensive executive training course called the Executive Education on Impact Evaluation is being offered by Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) in partnership with the Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA). The first of its kind in Qatar, the workshop will be held over June 5 and 6, and is primarily aimed at aiding local and regional organizations to develop long-term capacity to assess the effectiveness of their programs.

Through the eight sessions held over two days on the Education City campus of GU-Q, program participants who sign up for the training will be provided with a thorough understanding of randomized evaluations and the steps involved in conducting one’s own evaluation. The program is centered around the how, why, and when of effectively measuring quality control and outcomes, and teaches methods of monitoring that are useful for a variety of evaluations.

Dr. Ganesh Seshan, a professor of economics at GU-Q and the program’s organizer, stressed the importance of having a thorough understanding of how evaluations can measure an organization’s effectiveness.

“The Gulf is developing at a very fast pace, and for policy-makers, executives, business leaders, and social entrepreneurs, an understanding of whether their programs are having an impact on the intended recipients or beneficiaries is vital. This can be accomplished by a rigorous evaluation process to determine whether a program or policy has effectively met its stated objectives. In this workshop, we hope to raise awareness about determining what works and what doesn’t, and build local capacity to pursue evidence-based policymaking in Qatar and in the region.”

This executive training opportunity is designed for people from a variety of backgrounds, including policy-makers, practitioners, managers and researchers from governments, and NGOs alike, as well as for graduate students interested in the evaluation of development programs.

The course is offered in partnership with IPA, a non-profit organization that works to apply rigorous research techniques to develop and test solutions to real world problems, and has a proven history of conducting randomized controlled trials with a broad range of service providers in a variety of settings across the developing world. In order to maintain high interactivity, seating has been limited so interested participants are encouraged to apply early. To Request the application form please email us, deadline is on May 28th. Participants who are selected to attend will be informed by May 30th.