Doha Institute Holds Lecture On Evaluating Non-Profit Organisations Programmes

Doha: The research team of the“Building the Capacities of the Third Sector in the State of Qatar and the Gulf States” project at the Doha Institute for graduate Studies (DI), in cooperation with the Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activities (RACA), organised a scientific lecture entitled“Non-profits and Program Evaluation: Lessons for the Arab World”.

In a statement, DI said that the lecture comes within a research project funded by the Qatar Research, Development and Innovation Council (QRDI), with the aim of building the capacities of non-profit organizations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and enhancing their institutional performance.

He explained that the lecture, which was presented by Prof. Joan Carman, an expert in non-profit organisation management and programme evaluation at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, and moderated by Dr. Musa Alaya Al Afri, head of the project's research team, was attended by 80 participants from representatives of non-profit organizations in the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman and the State of Kuwait.

Government officials, faculty members and a number of students at the institute, in addition to researchers participating in the project were also present.

In this context, Dr. Musa Alaya Al Afri stressed the importance of programme evaluation as a basic tool for enhancing the efficiency of non-profit organisations, explaining that evaluation is not limited to monitoring and control, but is a crucial element in improving performance and ensuring the achievement of a tangible social impact.

He noted the importance of establishing a culture of evaluation within non-profit organisations in the region, which enables them to provide more effective and transparent services, enhancing the confidence of donors and stakeholders.

He pointed out that this lecture comes within a series of research and training initiatives aimed at improving governance and evaluation practices within the third sector in the Gulf region.

For her part, Prof. Joan Carman discussed key challenges facing non-profit organisations in evaluating their programmes, noting the availability of low-cost evaluation tools that organizations can adopt to improve their performance.

During the lecture, she highlighted the role of evaluation in securing funding and ensuring the sustainability of institutional support, in addition to addressing common errors in evaluation processes and ways to avoid them, and presenting successful international models in this field.

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