The Whole Picture: Promoting Coupled Systems Thinking in Development Evaluation Practice

30 October 2026 | 13:15 CEST to 13:45 CEST | Lille, France

Abstract

Environmental risk from climate change, biodiversity degradation and pollution continue to be among most serious threats for democracies worldwide. Risks are deeply interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Yet evaluation practice continues to regard natural and human systems as separate domains. While systems thinking has gained traction in evaluation discourse (Garcia & Uitto, 2025; Rowe, 2019) a significant gap persists between evaluation theory and actual practice.

Notably, the ecological dimension remains largely absent from evaluations of "non-environmental" interventions. A common assumption persists that interventions without explicit environmental objectives have a negligible environmental impact. On the other side, the contribution of environmental factors for outcomes and impacts to unfold are overseen. Yet most policies and programs across sectors have substantial environmental effects that significantly influence the environment and climate— from the carbon footprint of digital infrastructure in education programs, to land use changes in housing, to resource consumption in healthcare, to emissions from transportation.

This has critical consequences: we miss important impacts, overlook unintended consequences, and fail to capture the full picture of intervention effects. Beyond technical considerations, this issue has fundamental implications for democracy. At a time when environmental, economic, and social crises converge and threaten democratic governance, evaluation practice must evolve beyond isolated approaches. Current evaluation practices systematically overlook the environmental impacts of "non-environmental" interventions, creating blind spots that undermine evidence-based policymaking and democratic accountability. Citizens cannot hold governments accountable for consequences they cannot see, and policymakers lack information needed to balance social, economic, and environmental imperatives.

As we navigate planetary boundaries amid climate urgency, evaluation must evolve to capture these interconnections. This panel explores pathways to advance evaluation approaches that meaningfully integrate environmental and social dimensions, thereby strengthening evidence quality and democratic governance in an era of converging crises.

Five Complementary Perspectives

Building on Garcia & Uitto (2025) and Rowe (2019), this panel brings together five complementary perspectives demonstrating how environmental and social dimensions can be meaningfully combined in evaluation practice. Beginning with the political significance of coupled system thinking in Evaluation for democratic accountability, we present concrete tools and frameworks from Footprint Evaluation, capacity-strengthening approaches from a development evaluation institute, ground-level application from a national planning authority in Latin America and bridging evaluation to implementation through a European development practitioner’s lens.

Our diverse cases, tackle the critical questions: What tools work in practice? How can we overcome institutional resistance? What capacities do teams need? How do institutions change? What is the demonstrable added value? What is realistic versus aspirational? And crucially: How do complex evaluation findings translate into actionable change?

Together, our cases show the full journey from political rationale through tools and capacity development to ground-level applications and back into implementation, offering globally transferable lessons. By demonstrating how to make "hidden" environmental dimensions visible across development interventions, we expand evaluation's capacity to inform transformational change amid interconnected global challenges threatening our democracies.
Panel insights will inform a forthcoming paper by Warnholz, Rowe and Uitto, "Navigating Nexus: From Coupled System Thinking to Use-Driven Evaluation Practice."

Rationale and Objectives

In a time where environmental, economic, and social crises converge and threaten democratic governance, evaluation practice must evolve beyond siloed approaches. Current evaluation practices systematically overlook the environmental impact of "non-environmental" interventions, creating blind spots that undermine evidence-based policymaking and democratic accountability as evaluations reveal only partial insights.
This panel argues that comprehensive evidence for climate and environment action requires evaluating environmental dimensions across all sectors. By making these hidden impacts visible, evaluation can strengthen democratic accountability and inform policy trade-offs in an era where every decision has climate and environmental consequences.

Panel Objectives:

This panel demonstrates that applying coupled systems thinking in evaluation is both necessary and achievable. Through four complementary cases spanning different institutional contexts and geographies, we will:

1. Establish political relevance: Articulate why making invisible environmental impacts visible strengthens democratic accountability and informed governance for climate and environmental action beyond the traditionally “green” sectors.
2. Provide practical tools: Identify specific methods, frameworks and principles for coupled thinking, and strategies for engaging skeptical stakeholders, thereby applying systems thinking in practice during evaluations under real-world conditions.
3. Address capacity needs: Identify which competencies evaluators and institutions must develop, and demonstrate successful capacity-development approaches.
4. Share ground-level lessons: Provide honest insights into what works, what doesn't, and what's realistic versus aspirational across North-South contexts.
5. Bridging evaluation to implementation: Demonstrate how complex systems evaluation findings can be translated into actionable policy and programmatic change, drawing on European-African development cooperation experience.
6. Enable peer learning: Create space for practitioners to exchange experiences, challenges, and transferable solutions.

Expected Outcomes
Participants will leave equipped with actionable tools, institutional strategies, practical examples and approaches to integrate coupled systems thinking into their evaluation practice—moving from rhetoric to praxis in addressing interconnected global challenges.

Lille Grand Palais
Room 3.3
1 Bd des Cités Unies
59800 Lille, France