A joint evaluation of a conference on think tanks sponsored by the World Bank Institute and the center for international private enterprise

Since November 1997, the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and the World Bank Institute (WBI) have co-sponsored four regional capacity building workshops for think tanks. One thing that sets these workshops apart from standard conferences is the linked relationship between the succeeding events. Each conference plays a part in the identification of the objectives or in the improvement of the methodology for the next conference. A global conference of think tanks is currently being planned for December 1999. The evaluation design of the conference held in Beirut, Lebanon (February 6-8, 1999). The evaluation was based on the results of one pre- and one post- conference questionnaire. The pre-conference questionnaire targeted the single issue of the expectations of the participants. Participants were asked about the degree to which they were interested by the objectives and the lectures of the conference, and what they expected to take from the conference and apply in their organization. The post-conference questionnaire measured the degree to which the expectations of the participants were fulfilled and the extent to which the conference met its objectives as stated at the outset. The post-conference questionnaire was also designed to capture the effectiveness of the conference in three areas: discussion on policy issues, institutional strengthening, and information sharing among think tanks. The questionnaires offered a mix of closed quantitative and open qualitative questions.