Catching the Wave: Harnessing Data Science to Support Evaluation’s Capacity for Making a Transformational Contribution to Sustainable Development

Abstract

In this article we set ourselves three challenges: first, to examine the potential of the data revolution to aid the transformational change required to achieve sustainable development goals second, and the ability of evaluation to contribute to greater engagement with data science technologies; and third, the capacity of data science to further evaluation as an innovative and progressive field of inquiry. We also discuss the political, economic, cultural, and ethical challenges that data science presents to sustainable development and evaluation. We conclude that data science and evaluation can enhance each other to address the key development challenges of our time.