The demand for knowledge from evaluations to inform evidence-based policy making continues to rise in Africa. Simultaneously, there is increased recognition of the role tertiary education institutions can play in strengthening evaluation practice through high quality evaluation education. Within this context, this paper explores the status quo of evaluation education in selected tertiary institutions in Anglophone African countries. The paper utilizes a mixed methods research methodology that blends secondary data review, an online survey using a structured questionnaire and two regional workshops. Data was collected from 12 Anglophone African tertiary education institutions. Findings indicate that evaluation education in Anglophone African tertiary institutions is mostly in the nascent stages and there are mixed feelings on the appropriate entry levels (undergraduate or postgraduate). The study highlights the need for developing a specialized evaluation curriculum as evaluation education still borrows from theories and methodologies from the North. Institutional, operational and policy-related challenges are highlighted as well as the potential for collaboration among various stakeholders in strengthening the design and implementation of evaluation education. Key tenets for strengthening evaluation education are highlighted and discussed.
Wiess (1967) is considered as the first publication on evaluation utilisation (Dassah & Uken, 2007). 2The post-truth era is characterised by circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs.The post-truth world is argued to have emerged because of decline in social capital, growing economic inequality, declining trust in science, and a fractioned media platform.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines equity as the absence of preventable or remediable disparities among various groups of individuals, regardless of how these groups are delineated, whether by social, economic, demographic or geographic factors. The goal of equity is to eliminate the unfair and avoidable circumstances that deprive people of their rights. Therefore, inequities generally arise when certain population groups are unfairly deprived of basic resources that are made available to other groups. A disparity is ‘unfair’ or ‘unjust’ when its cause is due to the social context rather than biological factors. Equitable evaluation contends that conducting evaluation practices with an equity approach is more powerful, as evaluation is used as a tool for advancing equity. It emphasises that context, culture, history, and beliefs shape the nature of evaluations, specifically in the diverse and often complex African reality. Equitable evaluation can render power to the powerless, offer a voice to the silenced and give presence to those treated as invisible. Evidence from various sources shows that inequality is prevalent on the African continent, hence the need to focus on evaluative solutions that address the structural issues that contribute to the different forms of inequality, such as economic, political and social inequality. Despite a plethora of development interventions on the African continent, a large proportion of the population on the continent is still lacking access to basic goods and services for survival. The effectiveness of developmental programmes in sub-Saharan Africa has been elusive, to the extent that minimal inroads have been made in addressing key challenges such as poverty, inequality and the effects of climate change. This scholarly book aims to invigorate academic discussions surrounding developmental programmes, with the goal of generating insights that can be utilised by evaluation commissioners and decision-makers to help address inequality and promote a more equitable society in Africa through improved evaluation processes.
This study explores the rural livelihoods in Zimbabwe. Taking Moyo Musande as a case study, the study identifies and explores the livelihood strategies of households in the context of contemporary economic and political conditions. The empirical findings unpacked diverse livelihood activities and resources that villagers deploy to construct livelihoods. Contemporary livelihoods are not only located within natural resources and agrarian activities but also constitutes informality, civil society donations, social reciprocity, pensions and remittances. Livelihoods are often jeopardized by numerous challenges namely lack of credit, theft, unemployment and politics. Despite the challenges rural people negotiate and maneuver to secure household economic well being. The study demonstrated that given sound rural development policies, households are very much proficient of constructing their own fruitful sustainable livelihoods. These findings were projected through in-depth interviews which are a genre of qualitative methodology. Theoretically, the paper is underpinned by the Sustainable Livelihood Framework to examine the livelihoods strategies and the vulnerability context that complicates lives and livelihoods of rural people in Moyo Musande.
In 2021, the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association facilitated an evaluation hackathon that engaged diverse stakeholders in co-creation processes to develop practical solutions to address complex problems facing the monitoring and evaluation sector. The event catalysed broad-based ownership and enabled the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association to coordinate the creative energy, commitment and resources of its members, government and other partners to achieve outcomes that would not be possible to achieve otherwise. The article analyses the co-creation approach adopted for the hackathon across four phases, namely initiation, process design/planning, co-design and development and application/follow-up. A retrospective analysis of the process and results identified eight key elements that enabled or impeded the successful completion of hackathon outputs and their conversion into useful products. These elements are facilitative leadership, purposive stakeholder selection, a well-delimited task, preparation, process facilitation, a valued product, voluntary contributions and further capacity. The lessons learnt provide useful insight for future efforts to generate localised, contextualised responses to evaluation problems.
Zimbabwe has gone through a crisis which has left no stone unturned either social, economic and political. To date most households are failing to grapple with the effects of the crisis. This short paper examines how intra-household relations have been reconfigured due to the Zimbabwean crisis. Data collected revealed that women participation in the informal sector had improved their household decision making compared to the previous years. The study demonstrated that due to women involvement in the informal sector household status quo of men has been threatened and challenged. These findings were projected through in-depth interviews. Theoretically, the study is informed by the unitary and collective model.
Background: Monitoring and evaluation in Africa as a practice and discipline has been dominated by Global North perspectives. There have been efforts within the monitoring and evaluation space to build a practice and profession that is informed by epistemes and axiologies which are Afro-centric. The main stream approaches currently being used in African evaluations marginalize the African knowledge systems as well as African evaluators. Reconstructing and repositioning the value of Made in Africa Evaluation is a must, rather than a necessity.Objectives: This article documents critical factors inhibiting the deepening of the ‘Made in Africa Evaluation’ (MAE), both conceptually and practically.Method: Based on reviewed literature, hands-on experiences and conference attendances, researchers explored critical factors that inhibit MAE from gaining enough traction in Africa.Results: It is noted that MAE faces challenges in the region. African countries are struggling with common issues of how MAE can gain enough traction. Key factors observed are (1) the over-reliance on Western world views or paradigms, (2) the dominance of Global North donors as commissioners of African evaluations, (3) the supply chain practices of African evaluators and (4) the perceived infancy of the evaluation profession in Africa.Conclusion: Commissioners of evaluations should consider revising procurement regulations developed to facilitate equivalent shared responsibilities between African and Western evaluation experts. More work needs to be conducted in order to develop a body of knowledge with Afrocentric paradigms, ways of knowing and methodologies that are African. Developing an African methods database is essential. This will contribute towards the ability for Africans to drink from their own wells, thereby elevating the indigenisation of evaluation practice. This article advocates for the expedience of the MAE approach and fills an important empirical gap on the approach, which feeds into contemporary literature on the institutionalisation of African approaches in evaluation practice.
vidence for policy-informed decision-making, budgeting and programming. National evaluation systems (NESs) are being set up across Africa, together with the processes and other monitoring and evaluation (ME) infrastructure for efficient and effective functioning.Objectives: This article seeks to document comparative developments in the growth of systems in Anglophone African countries, and provide an understanding of these systems for capacity-development interventions in these countries. It also aims to contribute to the public debate on the development of national ME systems, institutionalisation of evaluation, and use of ME evidence in the larger African context.Methods: This article uses four key dimensions as the conceptual framework of a national monitoring and evaluation system, including monitoring and evaluation systems in the executive; the functioning of parliamentary ME systems; professionalisation of evaluation and existence of an enabling environment. A questionnaire was used to collect information based on the key dimensions from government and non-governmental personnel. The Mo Ibrahim index of 2018 was used to collect information on enabling environment.Results: Findings indicate that all systems have stakeholders with different roles and contexts and are designed according to the state architecture, prevailing resources and capacities.Conclusions: This article concludes that the findings can be used as different entry points for developing and strengthening ME capacities in countries studied.
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