The Benefits of an Evaluator’s Mindset: Interview with Ksenija Paksina
Ksenija Paksina joined the team of Policy Impact Lab in 2019. Since then, she has also taken on the role of project manager at ForumCiv, a Swedish organization supporting civil society and democratization efforts in over 70 countries. In the spring of 2024, Ksenija became manager of ForumCiv’s Regional Office for Eastern Europe, where she spearheads initiatives focused on human rights, gender equality, and environmental justice in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
PIL’s director Elma Paulauskaitė met with Ksenija in ForumCiv’s Vilnius office to talk about how her experience as an evaluator has shaped her approach to working in international development.
Elma: How does your experience at PIL impact your work at ForumCiv?
Ksenija: The impact of working on both sides of the field - grantmaking and evaluation - has been revolutionary for me. During my first year at ForumCiv, I already suggested doing a Theory of Change workshop - something I’ve seen at PIL - to discuss how we should go about one of the programmes that ForumCiv was rolling out.
So I invited several civil society organisations (CSOs) working in the same field but not collaborating much. My idea was to not only put them in contact, but to hash out what their mutual goal could be and how their visions can complement one another.
During the workshop I realised that CSOs are not used to thinking about needs or structure, but rather focus on fragmented activities and projects. This was a turning point for me - I began to think about civil society support programs more systematically, applying results-based management principles. At that time, both donors and CSOs had these great intentions about helping people but oftentimes did not think much about what is actually achieved and how do we measure it, or how to set up useful KPIs.
Today, we are at an inception phase of a programme to support the civil society of a neighbouring non-democratic country and its design is very much based on the things I’ve learnt at PIL. The programme is based on a thorough needs assessment of CSOs. My experience at PIL taught me to critically evaluate whether the different components of a programme genuinely serve the target audience and how they fit into the bigger picture.
We will be following a monitoring and evaluation plan with tangible qualitative and quantitative indicators and checkpoints to track progress and measure impact. Additionally, we’re supporting partner organizations in enhancing their own monitoring and evaluation practices - something that wasn’t a priority in the past.
Elma: How has being on the receiving end of external evaluation services influenced your perspective?
Ksenija: I’ve become a big advocate of external evaluations. I think it’s very important to get a fresh look on things from the outside. For instance, I was reading an evaluation report (prepared by PIL - author’s note) recently and thought how interesting it is to see projects being described based on the outcomes they achieved. Even though I worked on the same projects, I never thought about them from this perspective. It’s also great to have someone look at logframes and indicators to identify failures in the intervention logic. However, it’s not always possible to commission such services due to budget constraints.
Elma: Having been a consultant yourself, what would you wish us all?
Ksenija: We always issue open calls for proposals for evaluation services, but I must say that we feel a shortage of high-quality evaluation service providers. Sometimes you have to work with service providers who tend to write lengthy academic-style reports that offer little value to the stakeholders involved. PIL really stands out in this regard as you always engage clients from the very start, validate findings with multiple stakeholders, and co-create actionable recommendations. Having such a collaborative approach is something I’d recommend to all consultants.
Elma: Since becoming a Regional Manager, you’re now exclusively working with ForumCiv. Do you miss anything from your days at PIL?
Ksenija: I do. I used to love the opportunity of working in different contexts, seeing different countries, organisations and their ways of doing things. Here at ForumCiv we mostly work within a single region. My work as an evaluator at PIL allowed me to broaden my horizons - for instance, I learned about the situation of children in Guatemala and India, interviewed a journalist working in a remote village of Romania… Doing all these assignments was a way to travel to different parts of the world, even if only remotely.