Mar 31, Colombo: Fifty Parliamentarians and Parliament research staff from around 20 countries across Asia Pacific visited the Parliament of Sri Lanka Thursday (March 30) for an exchange session and dialogue on the importance of evidence-based policy making through evaluations.

This event marked the culmination of the 4-day ‘Better Policy Making Through Evaluations’ training from March 27-30 in Colombo, the first on-site international training on evaluation for Parliamentarians and Parliament research staff in the Asia Pacific region.

The session was held in Parliament under the patronage of the Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana, Speaker of Parliament and with the participation of Dr. Susil Premajayantha, Leader of the House of Parliament, Sajith Premadasa, Leader of the Opposition, Kabir Hashim, Chair of the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation and Member of Parliament and Dhammika Dasanayake, Secretary General of the Parliament of Sri Lanka.

The exchange session aims to showcase the Parliament of Sri Lanka’s achievements in institutionalizing evaluations and in developing robust national evaluation capacities.

The session featured presentations by Mr. Tikiri Jayathilake, Assistant Secretary General of Parliament of Sri Lanka, Senior Prof. Nilanthi De Silva, Vice Chancellor, University of Kelaniya, Prof. Reinhard Stockmann, Founder and Director for the Center of Evaluation, Saarland University/Germany, and Mr. Marco Segone, Director of UNFPA Evaluation Office.