African Evaluation Blogs

By Richard Levin

Good governance, participatory, people-centred democracy and development evaluation are intimately linked. Indeed evaluation cannot be understood outside of “development”, but is an integral part of the development process. While there is an increasing emphasis on the importance of ‘evidence’-informed policy formulation, the methods of gathering evidence often exclude a focus on participatory development evaluation techniques.

By Dr. Babette Rabie

A fair amount has been written about the apparent gap between researchers and policy-makers when it comes to ‘evidence’ – including the evidence produced through monitoring and evaluation. See for example a related post by Ian Goldman, Fred Carden’s insightful book, Knowledge to Policy, on the use, influence and impact of research in international development, and the dedicated work of organisations such as ODI.

By Benita Williams

I’ve worked as an evaluation consultant since the start of my professional career, doing the things an evaluation consultant does: Write proposals, do evaluation work and rejoice when the reams of transformed white paper that I produce actually results in a tangible difference for someone, somewhere. In the course of fifteen years, I’ve responded to a good many evaluation terms of reference, and presented to a few evaluation selection panels. I’ve learnt how to craft proposals and pitch for evaluation jobs like any evaluator would.

By Backson Sibanda

Having spent 22 years at the helm of the evaluation function in four different UN agencies and a further five years in evaluation consultancy, I find it imperative that I should now have the courage to ask whether managers and organizations utilize evaluation results. In other words, do organizations benefit from evaluations and get value for money?

By Backson Sibanda

Walking the talk-Evaluation has become an integral part of programme and project design, implementation and management. This is a great achievement by those “slaving” courageous evaluators. Evaluators have become bolder and more scientific and evidence based in their search for the “Holy Grail” of evaluation – that is, wide understanding and acceptance of its true meaning, value and utility.

By Backson Sibanda

Selective adoption of evaluation recommendations and lessons - There is need for evaluators to define what is meant by “LEARNING” from evaluations. There is an assumption in the evaluation discourse that there is a universal understanding on this. Superficially it may appear as if we all know what learning means.

By Janvier Ndagijimana

Evaluation is important for our continent. Many things prompted me to take an interest in a career in evaluation. After my university studies, I enjoyed being involved in project and program management. This experience showed me that projects are frequently undertaken without any study that clearly indicates their relevance to people’s wellbeing. Evaluation can address this – one of its many benefits.

By Glowen Kyei-Mensah

Sitting across the table from two representatives of soon to be clients, I didn’t think that this evaluation would be much different from many others we had worked on over the years. I knew that it would involve many days of participatory fieldwork but participation was the name of the work we constantly did – this was going to be business as usual.

By Nombeko Mbava

My interest in evaluation is sparked - I did not initially consider evaluation as a career. Having worked in the private sector for more than a decade, I became increasingly disillusioned. My main work was, in my perception, contributing primarily to shareholder value and the profit motive that underlies the private sector, with little or no apparent societal benefit.

By Nombeko Mbava

Monitoring and evaluation of government performance and programmes have become less of a haphazard knee-jerk reaction, a nice-to-have or an afterthought, and more of a deliberate, systematic and planned process. This is primarily because taxpayers are increasingly vocal, demanding that government must account for the use of public funds. The public is increasingly dissatisfied with huge budgets that are spent on public programmes that do not effectively demonstrate conclusive results and clear impact.

By Rendani Mbuvha; Aluwani Mauda

There is no debate, both in practice and in academia, about the fact that public policy domain is complex. In trying to navigate this complexity, the field has enjoyed widespread attention in terms of approaches and analytical frameworks. Most of these are grounded in the rational choice theory, where maximisation of aggregate utility across citizens is key. In order to make the most beneficial decisions, it is desirable to have knowledge of all possible alternatives and constraints.

By MoKete Mokone

Measuring programme effectiveness should allow for an opportunity to reflect on results that are not primarily intended by an intervention. The expectation that evaluation reports will conclusively establish the outcomes or impacts of an initiative might not be realistic. Perhaps we need to rethink what ‘success’ should look like, and consider what alternative perspectives might be available to guide us. In actual fact, both those who commission and those who respond to terms of reference do so with anticipation that an evaluation will confirm the strength of a theory of change.

By Edward Jackson & Karim Harji

Looking ahead to 2030, African evaluators may wish to boost their knowledge of finance and investment. Current estimates indicate that the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals will require investment capital of some $2.5 trillion annually for the next 15 years over and above official development assistance and national government spending. How evaluators with deep experience in grant-based programs funded by the public sector can shift their practice to investments driven by the private sector is an interesting and timely question.

By Edward Jackson

At a time when Africa’s rise has been stalled by a slow-down in the Chinese economy, depressed global commodity prices, continuing electricity brownouts, sustained high youth unemployment, and high-profile terrorist attacks, there is little question that African governments need the investment capital of western development finance institutions (DFIs). However, host governments face real obstacles to holding DFIs accountable for their actions.

By Adinda van Hemelrijck

The PIALA Adventure: Setting out in Ghana - September 2014. After having waited for several months for green light, I finally found myself almost impatiently queuing for boarding for what was my first flight to Ghana. Finally I would get this second PIALA pilot up on the rails. PIALA stands for Participatory Impact Assessment & Learning Approach and was piloted with funding from IFAD and BMGF in the impact evaluations of two IFAD-funded government programmes. :

By Steven Gruzd

African countries seem to be forever undergoing assessments and evaluations. Many stem from the governments of international development partners who have poured money into a plethora of projects, programmes and plans, and want to know what has worked and why. Others are commissioned by international organisations such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund that have likewise invested in development or infrastructure initiatives. Credit rating agencies also put African state’s political economies under their microscopes to pronounce on the investment climate.

By Dr Guy Blaise Nkamleu

My new book makes a compelling case on the devastating nature of per diem – i.e., daily allowance – systems in Africa. It supports the view that the per diem allowance system has become perverted and is now working against the objectives that underpin its existence. Although the book does not address evaluation as such, it can serve to draw evaluators’ attention to aspects of the development industry that are often not considered in their assessment of the benefits as well as undesirable consequences of development interventions.

By Dr Ian Goldman

In South Africa we have now established a government-wide evaluation system, with evaluation happening at national and provincial levels (but not yet local government). A total of 47 evaluations are completed or underway, covering $6 billion of government expenditure, with eight more being planned. In establishing the system we have had to establish many of the underlying systems to support the evaluation system (standards, competences, guidelines, courses, quality assessment system), i.e. the supply system.

By Apollo Nkwake

I have done evaluations for a while and I have learned that evaluators could do a better job in working with assumptions – assumptions of stakeholders and evaluators about programs and evaluations. Unexamined assumptions can be a huge risk to program success, and to helpful evaluations.

By Charles Dhewa

The majority of rural African parents are convinced that their children can learn more useful things from their local community than from formal schools. Besides the tendency to look down upon local knowledge, the modern African formal education system still has to become “domesticated” enough to recognize and reward abundant community knowledge.

By Fanie Cloete

Recognising the distinct African Context - At the end of last year I participated in the 2015 AEA Conference in Chicago on Exemplary Evaluations. As is always the case with these events, this one was a fascinating experience too, and very topical for Africa.

By Fanie Cloete

Why Africa-rooted Evaluation? In my first blog on this platform I summarized the reasons why the Western evaluation paradigm that has in the past influenced evaluation practices in Africa significantly, are still doing so. I motivated why this paradigm should perhaps be contextualized more effectively on the African continent, and adapted better to conditions that are in most respects quite different from the Western contexts within which evaluation developed into its current manifestation as a transdisciplinary global profession.

By Fanie Cloete

Just before I started to write this blog, I received the announcement of the 8th AfrEA International Conference that is scheduled to be held in Kampala, Uganada on 27-31 March 2017 on the theme “Evaluation of the SDGs: Opportunities and Challenges for Africa”. In this first announcement of the envisaged conference, the organisers stated that one of the primary goals of the conference is that it will act as “the foundation for promoting and advocating AfrEA’s ‘Made in Africa” approach’.

By Dr Mark Abrahams

The development of evaluation research capacity faces some inherent challenges. Among others, the knowledge and skills that are shared should be appropriate for the context, and methodologies should be carefully designed to ensure that the social practice of power is not reinforced. Research agendas as with development agendas are subject to powerful force fields that include elements of personal choice and existing social capital within society.

By Indran Naidoo

A democratic culture supports evaluation, as enabling factors such a transparency and accountability create a demand for evaluation. In the same manner, although difficult, the pursuit of evaluation in non-democratic cultures may help to introduce important elements of reflection, transparency and accountability. Whilst evaluation is unlikely to bring about democracy, it can contribute to a democratic ethos.