Dr Ruth Mojalefa

I am a government official currently employed by the department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) which was formed as result of the merger between two former departments namely; Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) and Arts and Culture (DAC). The merger took place in 2019.

Skills, experience and the period I have been in the M&E field: I have strong research skills which allows me to conduct evaluations studies with ease. I have been in the field of M&E since 2002 and I began to be an expert since 2016 because I was leading and still leading the unit: Research and Policy. I enjoy what I am doing. I have conducted quite a number of internal evaluations without the assistance of the service provider. I have developed and implemented improvement plans in order to implement recommendations captured in the evaluation reports.

The aim is to improve performance of the intervention. I have developed M&E framework and also facilitated M&E forums which consisted of national and provincial departments as way of integrating Plans, for example customised indicators were developed. I have been organising and managing departmental (former department of Sport and Recreation) SASRECON conferences which were attended by both national and international delegates/speakers.

The biggest challenge facing M&E in South Africa: There is still a gap in terms of implementing recommendations that are captured in the evaluation reports. In other words, Improvement plans are still not fully developed, implemented and monitored I order to improve performance of the evaluated intervention. Budget is not allocated to evaluation studies. There is no alignment between Planning, budgeting and evaluation. What SAMEA should achieve in the next 3 years? Full institutionalisation of evaluation should take place in South Africa. There should be integration of Plans from all spheres of government and entities and that will encourage sector programme evaluation. Internal evaluations should be encouraged. It means capacity building should continue to take place in the field of M&E especially evaluation related matters.

My contribution as a SAMEA board member: I will share organising skills to assist in organising for the successful SAMEA conferences. I will share my skills in the field of research, Planning, monitoring and evaluation. My intension is to promote the functions and the importance of evaluation within government. By doing that I will be contributing to the institutionalising evaluation in South Africa.