1. March 26 – 30, 2007, Johannesburg, South Africa
THE DECADE OF AFRICAN EVALUATION: Establishing an African Identity in Evaluation
Keynote Presentation
Dr. Sulley Gariba
President, AfrEA
1st Conference of the South African Monitoring & Evaluation Association (SAMEA)
March 26 – 30, 2007, Johannesburg, South Africa
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2. In this presentation… Our history, our roots
Development paradigms that have shaped evaluation in Africa
An outline of the contours of what is being described as the African Renaissance
Dialogue about the dilemma confronting African Evaluation in making fundamental shifts
A brief review of the Evaluation responses laying the foundations for African Evaluation
Offer some steps to begin to “put African Evaluation in Action”
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3. Vision that Lasted 50 Years
Our “…independence is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of the African continent”
Kwame Nkrumah, 6th March 1957
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4. Times gone by…
150 years earlier, in March 1787 Slave Trade was being abolished, but not before it wreaked havoc on human capital of Africa
Much later, apartheid was established in South Africa, with its dehumanizing impacts
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5. DE-COLONIZATION
Orchestrated by remarkable leaders and was supported by African citizens – our first speaker alluded and paid tribute, appropriately to these leaders and peoples of Africa
Facilitated by OAU (Now AU)
Golden age of cooperation – East African Community
The crucial question to ask is: what have African evaluators done to record the experiences of this era and to bring lessons to bare on how our people and governments shape the future?
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6. AS INDEPENDENT STATES
The transformation of governance and development that was promised initially was visited by:
Dictatorship, sometimes brutal and miserable for peoples of Africa
Conflicts and their attendant woes -- refugees
Crippling poverty
Violation of rights
A different kind of colonization – aid, debt and donor dependence
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7. Development Paradigms & Evaluation Response
Externally-driven Development Paradigms
Evaluation Response
Projects and Programmes based on Development assistance
Program-based evaluation, experimental and quasi-experimental models
Structural Adjustment Programming
Policy-based evaluations and compliance with conditionalities
Poverty Reduction Strategies & the MDGs
Monitoring systems for tracking targets and global goals
Paris Declaration and the General Budget Supports
Wide-scale adoption of RBM-based planning; associated evaluations based on Performance Measurement Frameworks
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8. Shifting Development Paradigms
Development as People-centered investments, defined by Constitutions and popular demand
“Where social programs are policy-connected interventions underpinned by the Constitution and Bill of Rights” Mark Abrahams, UCT.
Emergence of democracy and associated demands for participation and accountability
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9. ARCHITECTURE OF AFRICAN RENAISSANCE
Transformation of OAU to AU
A governance structure that includes a Pan-African Parliament
Institutions that promise to guarantee human rights and civil liberties
A development agenda in NEPAD
An associated self-directed evaluation framework – the African Peer Review Mechanism
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10. MAJOR QUESTION & DILEMMA: AFRICAN EVALUATION OR EVALUATION IN AFRICA?
African Knowledge Systems as a basis for Evaluation Theory
African Values and means of establishing valuation: how do we interprete the vision espoused in some of our constitutions – people come first
Purpose of Evaluation -- How do African evaluators cope with the challenges posed by the need to use evaluation as a tool for transformation, not just as ex-post assessment
Who commissions these evaluations?
How and with what standards and ethics are we conducting Evaluation in Africa
What Uses do we put to our evaluation endeavor
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11. Add to these questions…those I picked from a previous session
What works for Africa?
Where are we in evaluation in Africa?
Where are we going with evaluation in Africa?
Who is documenting the lessons from practice of evaluation in Africa?
Lerato
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12. Theory-base for African Evaluation
Mobilizing an African Evaluation “think-tank” to:
Conduct research on indigenous knowledge systems that have bearing on evaluation. Much of the most profound history that have shaped & distorted our development is still rather oral
Publish epistemology and ontology of African Evaluation
Define ethics and standards for evaluation that satisfies Africa’s historical past and its cultural realities and specificities
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13. Evaluation for Transformation
For most of Africa, we cannot afford evaluation that merely registers “causality” for the sake of establishing “impacts”
Our citizens cannot wait, they need to be engaged in assessments that empower them to address the causes of failure and propel their energies for policy reforms
What are the tools for this transformative evaluation? As opposed to “Rigorous” impact evaluation?
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14. On the Demand-side: Empowering New Commissioners
Parliamentary systems for Evaluating Performance and feeding these into Government Budget Reviews
Civil Society engagement in assessing public policies
Continental systems for independent evaluation of Country Performance – APRM and the popular dissemination of findings
While strengthening current systems, such as Government-wide Monitoring and Evaluation processes
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15. On the Supply-side: Growing New African Evaluators
Capacity Development efforts, including:
Core training of African Evaluators, including uniquely African theory-base in the curriculum, along with others that are global;
Arranging practical internships in different African countries and cultures;
Encouraging and funding partnerships among evaluators, in both the public and private sectors
Sharing lessons across countries and within countries
Networking among training institutions across Africa
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16. POSITIONING TO START-OFF THE DECADE:
Expansion of the frontiers of Africa’s civil society, especially among the labour movement
Voices and collective energies of the marginalized, especially through a growing number of networks, including advocacy networks for women; for the environment; for People Living with HIV and AIDS
Peer Review Mechanisms working, but still limited to the Governments
Potential for continental oversight through Pan-African Parliament
Independent Evaluation Organizations emerging (eg. South Africa), and those not independent of donors are challenging the status-quo and reshaping their relations with donors (eg. Tanzania, Uganda)
Democracy is spreading, and with it, the orthodoxy of development paradigms is being challenged.
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17. SAMEA An example of how to deepen Evaluation within countries:
Regional and Provincial chapters
Subject-matter groups
Alliances between Government, Academic institutions and Practioners
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18. AFREA IS COMING OF AGE:
Been instrumental in the growth of new Evaluation Associations across Africa; and now the emergence of public sector evaluation institutions – example: New Ministry for Monitoring & Evaluation in Niger
Now seeking to influence the role that Africa plays in the re-thinking, reforming and re-shaping Evaluation on the continent
Representing Africa’s voice and contributing to global debates on Evaluation
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19. HOW DO WE PROCEED… Building partnerships:
Between evaluators and citizen groups, such that voices of the marginalized can be given credibility through systematic processes of presenting evidence
Between academics and evaluators, such that a theory-base can emerge
Between leading African institutions of oversight, such that they can become continental and global players whose work is viewed credibly
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