The Evaluation Reference Group (ERG) will work with the Evaluation Function Lead, under the oversight of the Director, IAES Secretariat, to provide expert input to IAES Evaluation Function as it implements its approved 2022-24 workplan. Detailed group objectives and related responsibilities align with the workplan, and available to the public upon request. IAES will revise the reference group terms of reference periodically as necessary, in accordance with adaptive management principles.
ERG Members
John Gargani
John Gargani, PhD, MBA has 30 years of experience as an evaluation practitioner, researcher, writer, speaker, and teacher. With Gargani + Company, he directs projects around the world that range from early-stage program design to multi-site randomized control trials. As an Adjunct Professor at Claremont Graduate University, he teaches classes on program design, social impact measurement, and social entrepreneurship.
He coauthored Scaling Impact: Innovation for the Public Good with Robert McLean of IDRC, which explores the meaning and practice of scaling from the perspective of Southern innovators. He also publishes per-reviewed journal articles on topics related to impact measurement, evaluation theory, and human-centered practice.
He is a former President of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) and a frequent international speaker on topics related to evaluation, program design, and impact measurement. Currently, he is conducting research on new evaluation methods that integrate diverse understandings of impact and value, and how they can help impact investors and social entrepreneurs be more effective.
He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley; an M.S. in Statistics from New York University; and an M.B.A from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Sonal Zaveri
Sonal Zaveri has over 30 years’ experience in strategic planning, program design, capacity building, mentoring, and evaluation. She has a Ph.D. in Social Work and was a Fleishman Fellow at Duke University, USA. She has worked in more than 25 countries in Asia, Asia-Pacific, and Central Asia, East and West Africa, Middle East, and Eastern Europe at grassroots, sub-national, national, regional, and international levels bringing a broad contextual experience.
She holds regional and global leadership positions - founder and board member of Community of Evaluators South Asia; coordinator of the Gender & Equity Network South Asia (GENSA); co-chair EvalGender+, member of the EvalPartners Coordination Committee, board member of the International Evaluation Academy (IEAc), and a core member of the South to South Evaluation (S2SE), which addresses asymmetries in global evaluation.
Sonal’s interests relate to how rights, participation, transformation, and gender are addressed through collaborative, culturally responsive, and learning-oriented evaluation approaches, and methodologies.
Guy Poppy
Professor Guy Poppy served as the UK’s Food Standards Agency’s (FSA’s) Chief Scientific Adviser from 2014 to 2020. He continues with his research in global food security at the University of Southampton, where he is Professor of ecology and directs interdisciplinary research as the Associate Vice President. He was appointed Companion of the Order of Bath (CB) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2021.
He has significant research experience in food systems and food security and has advised governments around the world on these issues. He is currently a member of the Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) panel assessing the quality of agriculture, food, and veterinary science in the UK, having previously served on the REF2014 panel. He is a graduate of Imperial College and Oxford University, and previously worked at Rothamsted Research.
He focuses on connecting science to users and has pushed for scientists to be intelligent providers to intelligent customers of science.
Ola Ogunyinka
Dr. Ogunyinka, a Resource Economist by training was until recently, a Senior Research Fellow with responsibilities for Monitoring, Learning, Evaluation and Impact Assessment at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, United Kingdom. He has had a long association with the CGIAR system dating back to early 1991 to 2006, when he was the Head of the then Monitoring and Evaluation Unit at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Nigeria.
With a PhD in program evaluation, Dr. Ogunyinka’s 35 years’ evaluation experience cuts across sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia and includes a range of large-scale, multi-country program, process, performance, and impact evaluations. He has led/been team member of evaluations commissioned by amongst others, USAID, EU, The UK Government, ILO, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The World Bank to name a few. His rich and diverse experience includes agricultural value chain analysis, impact assessment, research, and capacity building covering the broad areas of rural livelihood improvement systems, food security, poverty alleviation, and natural resources management.
His main evaluation interests include methodological issues and generating learning from evaluation processes.
Roberto La Rovere
Roberto La Rovere is an independent evaluator. He previously worked at three CGIAR Centers in West and East Africa, Syria, and Mexico, being focal point for the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) and the Science Council until 2010. He has consulted extensively for the UN Rome-Based Agencies, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and for more than a decade he has been a senior evaluation advisor at UNDP, at the Green Climate Fund (GCF), and at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
His research and science track led him to author above a hundred publications including a chapter on Evaluation of Climate Change, Environment and NRM in the CGIAR in the book titled Evaluating Environment in International Development. He holds a Ph.D. in natural resource management (NRM) economics, and degrees in development economics and agricultural sciences and systems as well as specializations in evaluation and climate change.
Roberto has interests in evaluation in development and humanitarian contexts and his evaluation and working experience cuts across multiple and diverse cultures as he has been based in Latin America, the Middle East, Far East Asia, and in most regions of Africa. He strongly believes in the transformative power of evaluation for catalyzing organizational learning and change and for greater impact.
Meet Our Former Evaluation Reference Group Members
Learn about past Evaluation Reference Group members and their contributions to CGIAR’s evaluation work.
Former ERG member | Title | ERG Term Served |
Evaluator and Adjunct Professor | 2023-2024 | |
Professor | 2022-2025 | |
Independent Evaluator | 2022-2025 | |
| 2022 |