Social Equity Assessment Tool (SEAT) for evaluation

This paper presents the Social Equity Assessment Tool (SEAT) for evaluation, designed to help evaluators practically and contextually examine equity and social justice issues in their work.

This resource and the following information was contributed by Khalil Bitar.

Authors and their affiliation

Khalil Bitar, Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt / Chair, EvalYouth Global Network / Co-leader, Decade of Evaluation for Action (Eval4Action) Campaign

Key features

SEAT is a social equity assessment tool for evaluation. It is a tool that can help evaluators practically and contextually examine equity and social justice issues in their work. While evaluators —scholars and practitioners alike— have always paid considerable attention to the importance of addressing equity and social justice issues in evaluation, the evaluation field currently lacks the methodological tools needed for equity assessment and evaluation. The paper:

1. discusses this methodological gap,

2. highlights the historical neglect of equity and social justice in some of the most widely and globally utilized evaluation criteria, including the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Evaluation Criteria, and its implications for the evaluation field’s equity assessment effort, and

3. proposes an intersectional and adaptable tool —with 13 main social equity aspects— which evaluators can utilize to practically and contextually examine equity and social justice issues in various contexts.

How have you used or intend on using this resource?

SEAT is new. It needs to be piloted still, which I plan on doing soon. Yet, I have been using elements of it throughout my evaluation career. Many evaluators, in fact, naturally examine equity aspects in their evaluation work. What is perhaps new and helpful in the SEAT is its presentation of a) a background to equity and social justice evaluation effort; and b) an overall framework to inclusively, methodologically, and contextually examine multiple social equity aspects using an intersectional approach.