Nana Davies

I am Nana Davies and I am a partner in Southern Hemisphere which is a planning, monitoring and evaluation consultancy based in South Africa. I hold a Master’s Degree in Law specialising in Human Rights. I have been worked as an evaluator in South Africa for over 25 years.

Some of the core challenges facing the M&E sector in South Africa and abroad is that there is not enough emphasis on the use of evidence to inform decision making and not enough importance placed on the use of African evaluators who really understand our context and can provide relevant solutions. I have been involved in a variety of SAMEA activities since its inauguration, ranging from attending and presenting at the bi-annual national and provincial conferences to conducting professional development workshops.

I would like to be further involved and I feel like it is my time to give back. I am committed and want to strengthen and promote SAMEA as vibrant professional organisation that supports us as monitoring and evaluation professionals.

My vision for SAMEA for the next three years is that it continues to strengthen South African evaluators. I vision SAMEA as a strong professional association that advocates for South African evaluators in providing evidence for the improved and meaningful impact in South Africa, in Africa and Globally. SAMEA can do this through advancing their career opportunities and having a vibrant community of capacity strengthening and networking. I can contribute as a board member of SAMEA because I have extensive experience in working with a broad range of clients such as the South African government, NGOs, UN agencies, Academia and Foundations.

I also understand what it takes to grow emerging evaluators as I have mentored many over the years. I furthermore have many years of experience as a board member for an NPO. If you vote for me, you will get someone who really understand the evaluation landscape in South Africa and understand what it takes to build the profession of evaluators who are committed to social justice.