Editorial comment: Thanks to Alexey Kuzmin for sharing this summer blog on the influence of Facebook for CIS evaluation associations.

Social media includes web-based and mobile-based technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue among organizations, communities, and individuals. Social media affects various spheres of our lives. It definitely becomes an important factor in evaluation capacity development.

In our region, Facebook became an ‘incubator’ for the national professional associations. Associations often start as informal groups. Today, those informal groups are getting registered on Facebook which allows them to attract more attention of those who are interested in collaboration and to build a constituency long before the evaluation association is formalized.  In fact, a presence on Facebook makes informal networks visible and opens many interesting opportunities for them.

For example, the Ukrainian Evaluation Association on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/groups/Ukr.evaluationsociety/ ) has 116 members and is actively developing its international links with the existing evaluation associations in our region and beyond.

Azerbaijan Evaluation Network on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/groups/Ukr.evaluationsociety/#!/groups/azerbaijan.evaluation/) has 47 members and is promoting evaluation in Azerbaijan. They organize round table discussions and inform network members about training opportunities and evaluation jobs.

An initiative group that works towards the establishment of the Russian Evaluation Society created its own page on Facebook  (http://www.facebook.com/RussianEvaluationSociety) to inform the professional community about current developments. It has about 70 followers.

Alexey Kuzmin
ECDG Advisory Group