Evaluating in crisis settings is rarely straightforward 

Imagine you are conducting an evaluation in a humanitarian crisis setting. Travel restrictions limit access to affected communities. Local organisations are overstretched. Participants are navigating trauma, insecurity, and displacement. Timelines are compressed because donors need rapid evidence to inform decisions. ​ You want the evaluation to move beyond counting outputs and instead meaningfully partner with affected communities in the production and interpretation of knowledge. You want women, girls, displaced populations, and other marginalised groups not only to participate safely, but to help shape what questions are asked, what evidence is valued, and how findings are understood and used. But where do you start? ​ There is no shortage of guidance in the evaluation field. Humanitarian evaluation frameworks offer important standards for working in emergency settings. Gender-responsive evaluation guidance helps evaluators integrate gender considerations into analysis and reporting. Feminist evaluation approaches provide critical thinking on power, participation, and inclusion. 

From insights to action: how the toolkit emerged

This gap became the starting point for the project From Insights to Action: Advancing Feminist Evaluation Innovations in Crisis Contexts, which I led as one of six global recipients of the Feminist Innovation in Monitoring and Evaluation (FIME) Small Grant Award. The award was implemented by the Global Evaluation Initiative in partnership with EvalGender+, with financial support from Global Affairs Canada.

As part of the project, I conducted a qualitative evidence synthesis examining feminist evaluation innovations across evaluations implemented in humanitarian and fragile settings between 2019 and 2024. The review covered diverse crises, including forced displacement, public health emergencies, climate-related disasters, and conflict settings across multiple regions.

The synthesis showed that evaluators are already adapting feminist approaches in creative and innovative ways. Across the evaluations reviewed, practitioners were experimenting with participatory sampling strategies, arts-based methods, community validation processes, trauma-informed approaches, and intersectional analysis frameworks to better capture experiences that conventional evaluation approaches can overlook.

At the same time, the synthesis revealed that many of these feminist innovations were applied in ad hoc and uneven ways. In several cases, approaches were not explicitly documented as feminist practices, were implemented without reference to existing feminist evaluation guidance, or remained confined to isolated stages of the evaluation process rather than being applied systematically across the evaluation cycle. There was limited consolidated guidance showing evaluators how to operationalise feminist principles coherently and consistently in crisis contexts.

Building a practical 'one-stop' resource for evaluators 

 The Feminist Evaluation Toolkit for Crisis Contexts was developed in response to this challenge and built through three interconnected streams of work.

First, it draws directly from the evidence synthesis. The resource incorporates lessons, innovations, and practical adaptations identified across real-world crisis evaluations. Rather than presenting idealised models, it reflects approaches that evaluators have already tested in complex operational environments.

Second, the Toolkit was practitioner-informed and collaboratively developed. Consultation workshops included feminist evaluators, women's rights and women-led organisations, and experts working across humanitarian and evaluation sectors. The Toolkit was also refined through engagement with organisations and evaluation functions including the UNICEF Evaluation Office, UN Women Independent Evaluation Service, the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group, and the Asian Development Bank Independent Evaluation Department. This collaborative process helped ensure that the Toolkit remained grounded in operational realities rather than purely theoretical discussions.

Third, the Toolkit builds on - rather than replaces - existing guidance. It adapts and consolidates existing humanitarian evaluation standards, feminist evaluation approaches, and gender-transformative frameworks into a single practical resource. The intention was to reduce the learning curve for evaluators and create a more accessible "one-stop shop" for applying feminist approaches in crisis settings.

What the toolkit looks like in practice 

Importantly, the Toolkit was designed for usability under pressure.

For instance, teams seeking to ensure that gender and equity considerations are embedded throughout an evaluation - rather than treated as an afterthought - can draw on guidance for establishing a Gender Working Group (Section 3.3) to strengthen intersectional thinking and maintain attention to power dynamics across the evaluation cycle.

Suppose your team is developing evaluation questions for a humanitarian response and wants to move beyond standard questions focused only on delivery and coverage. The Feminist Evaluation Question Bank (Section 3.5) provides adaptable prompts that encourage evaluators to examine participation, exclusion, voice, and decision-making power.

Similarly, imagine preparing for data collection in a displacement setting where participation must be conducted safely and inclusively. The Toolkit includes a Safe Spaces for Data Collection Checklist (Section 5.1) that helps evaluators consider confidentiality, gendered safety risks, accessibility barriers, and power dynamics within discussions.

Additional resources include guidance on intersectional analysis, participatory and arts-based methods, community validation workshops, and reflexivity tools that encourage evaluators to critically examine how their own assumptions and positionality shape the evaluation process.

Rather than requiring evaluators to adopt an entirely new methodology, the Toolkit encourages adaptable entry points. Teams can integrate feminist approaches across an entire evaluation or apply selected components depending on context, feasibility, and operational constraints. 

Moving from principles to practice 

For me, one of the clearest lessons from this work is that many evaluators already want to conduct more inclusive and equity-focused evaluations in crisis settings. The challenge is often not a lack of commitment, but a lack of practical and consolidated operational guidance.

As conversations around localisation, participation, and equity continue to shape the evaluation sector, practical resources that help translate principles into day-to-day evaluation decisions are increasingly important.

The Feminist Evaluation in Crisis Toolkit was developed as one contribution toward bridging that gap - supporting evaluators to move from intention to implementation in complex and rapidly changing environments.