Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management

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Browsing Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management by Faculty "Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management"

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    A cross-country analysis investigating the impact of the 2008-09 Financial Crisis on the conduct of monetary policy
    (2021) Creamer, Kenneth; Lamperelli, Daniela
    Taylor Rule analysis is utilised to enable an analysis of how the 2008 Financial Crisis impacted on the conduct of monetary policy across various countries. Structural Break Analysis and Markov Switching (MS) Regressions are used in order to identify breaks and changes in the conduct of monetary policy as result of the Crisis. The study finds evidence of Crisis-related changes in monetary policy conduct in South Africa, as well as in the US, the UK, the Euro Area (the ECB), Colombia, Peru and South Korea. On the other hand, the results for Brazil, Mexico and Israel do not show conclusive differences in monetary policy conduct in the pre-Crisis and post-Crisis periods. Along with South Africa, there are only two other countries, namely Brazil and Mexico, whose smoothing parameters are larger in the post-Crisis period. Four out of the ten countries place a lower weight on inflation post-Crisis. Six central banks reduce their weighting on the output gap after the Crisis.
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    African Parliaments: Systems of Evidence in Practice (vol 2)
    (Sun Press, 2022-01-20) CLEAR-AA
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    An investigation of stakeholder influence on participants’ informed consent in the monitoring and evaluation process
    (2022) Kapay, Sara
    Monitoring and Evaluations (hereafter referred to as evaluations) aid in decision making, come in many forms and have various functions depending on their objectives. The nature of evaluations is such that they are reliant on participation from various individuals, communities, and organizations. Informed consent is the process by which participants are made aware of the potential risks, benefits, and objectives of a study and thereafter formally or informally indicate their consent to take part in the proposed research. Informed consent is required as it contributes to trust amongst stakeholders in evaluations. However, while issues regarding informed consent (both in theory and practice) have a well-documented history, especially in medical journals that centre on developed nations; further insights still need to be garnered. As such, there is a need to understand the informed consent process and its suitability within low-income nations in research and evaluations. Consequently, this research report aims to provide an understanding of stakeholder influence on informed consent on participants in evaluations and how power and pressure mechanisms from stakeholders affect informed consent. The interviews allowed us to better understand the role of stakeholders and their influence in informed consent through the perspectives and lived realities of evaluators, industry experts, researchers, and academics as well as those currently working in organisations that have been evaluated. It is evident from the interview findings that the power dominance, pressure, and influences that occur in Evaluation can be both implied and explicit. There is no consensus on what constitutes true informed consent or what exactly and to what extent should participants be informed within evaluations. Rather the focus is more on the protection and privacy of information and data of the evaluations than participants' consent. The observed and dominant ways stakeholders influence participant informed consent is through information. This study contributes to the existing literature on the relationship between evaluators, participants, and decision-makers as well as the power dynamics experienced practically within evaluations. The researcher proposes that a more deliberate approach needs to be taken during the conception phase of evaluations. Finally, further research looking at participation in Evaluation from the lenses of participants is required. In addition, a deeper look into ethics within evaluations as service providers to their stakeholders.
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    Assessing the implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems in the National Treasury
    (University of the Witwatersrand, 2022) Sithagathaga, Latani Nicolas
    This research study was driven and motivated by the need for continuous public service reform while maintaining good governance and enhanced service delivery in public service institutions. Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems are one of the important instruments used to assess progress made in public service reforms and good governance in the public service. A thorough study was conducted to assess the implementation of M&E in the National Treasury to establish challenges and lessons learned. The literature review process conducted was focused on determining relevant theoretical and legislative frameworks as well as policy and frameworks relevant to public sector reforms, governance and M&E. A qualitative research design method was chosen for this study, using a case study to collect data. The unit of analysis was the National Treasury, and a non-probability sampling approach was used to target key informants from the Strategic Planning Monitoring & Evaluation Unit and other employees from different Divisions of the National Treasury. The primary research data was sourced through a series of semi-structured interviews. Content analysis of key M&E relevant government documents was conducted to understand the M&E. To conduct this assessment, the study posed two important questions. The researcher reviewed literature relating to the established history and description of the National Treasury. The researcher further conducted research problem analysis to understand the history and description of monitoring and evaluation. The researcher has further reviewed the literature on the monitoring and evaluation systems of developed and developing countries in Africa and internationally. From the reviewed literature, the researcher developed a theoretical and conceptual framework to guide the research approach in collecting, processing, and analysis of the research results. The researcher developed an explanatory framework that assists in interpreting the findings. Some of the findings pointed to the following issues. It was not clear from the reports whether the National Treasury lacked the capacity and skills for monitoring and evaluation on the repeated audit opinions as raised by Auditor General or whether it lacked defined structures, processes, that also include roles and responsibilities for monitoring and evaluation; or lacked support and buy-in from management and support staff. It is crucial that the National Treasury M&E system generates high quality performance information on quarterly and annual periods to provide decision makers with critical information. This information should also be provided to public, and other stakeholders with accurate and reliable performance information on reforms and good governance of the organisation. The research concluded that, given the establishment and institutional arrangement elements that were assessed and found to be in place and functional, the National Treasury M&E system has the potential to be sustainable if the recommendations provided in this study are considered and implemented. There were no clear indications of specific challenges that were encountered during implementation and there was a clear process followed in conducting the M&E within the organisation which can be used as lessons by other organisations. The Researcher concluded by providing some recommendations to strengthen the National Treasury’s monitoring and evaluation system.
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    Equitable Evaluation Voices from the Global South
    (AOSIS, 2023-01-10) CLEAR-AA
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    Evaluation Landscape in Africa
    (Sun Press, 2021-06-01) CLEAR-AA
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    IPDET Onsite training
    (CLEAR-AA, 2024-03-01) IPDET
    IPDET 2024 now open for registration!
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    Limited use of evaluative evidence in public policy, planning and Voluntary National Review (VNR) development.
    (2023) Dlakavu, A; Hoffmann, D
    The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a development tool, with a detailed follow-up and review mechanism, guided by a global indicator framework and prominently positioned in Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs). Within this context, however, program evaluation only plays a minor role. This policy brief analyses the position of program evaluation in public policy, development planning and VNR development processes of eight countries in Africa and Latin America. The brief is based on a discussion paper produced jointly by the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval), the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results-Anglophone Africa (CLEAR-AA) and the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results-Latin America and the Caribbean (CLEAR-LAC) in 2022. This paper found that program evaluation is marginalized in VNR development, a key international tool for assessing UN member nations’ progress in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through document analysis and key informant interviews in the sampled countries, the paper finds that the marginal position of program evaluation vis-à-vis VNR development is linked to a combination of structural and operational issues. These include lack of internalization and entrenchment of the SDGs in public policy and planning cycles and/or processes of governments; lack of focus on the VNR process by evaluation stakeholders; the VNR development guidelines’ quantitative bias; and emerging evaluation practice in certain countries. This brief concludes by recommending five remedial policies for addressing the marginalized position of evaluation in VNRs.
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    Terms of Reference for conducting a comparative analysis of diagnostic tools for National Evaluation Systems in Africa
    (2023-10-23) CLEAR-AA
    CLEAR-AA, DEval and WFP are collaborating to strengthen evaluation capacity development across the African Continent. At a kick-off workshop at the Evidence 2023 Conference in September 2023 in Entebbe, Uganda, the three partners agreed on the need for a deeper understanding of the landscape of diagnostic tools and processes, towards improving interventions focused on the strengthening or establishment of national M&E systems, and more specifically to help focus their work in Evaluation Capacity Development [ECD], particularly across the African continent.
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    The role of peace missions in sustaining peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
    (2023) Nyuykonge, Wiykiynyuy Charles
    This study examined efforts aimed at ending conflict and restoring order and political stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, under the auspices of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. As one of the largest and most extensively funded peace operations across the globe, the UN’s mission in the DRC represents paradoxes and contradictions of the Liberal Peacebuilding approach, from the size of deployment to the scale of its funding, given the failure to end cycles of conflict in the country. In departing from the dominant socio-economic and ethnographic lenses from which the elusiveness of peace in the country have been examined in many studies, this study focused on the institutional guiding frameworks that have informed the succession of UN peacekeeping missions and madates over the years. A significant amount of research on UN peacekeeping missions in the DRC have relied on the Liberal Peacebuilding discourse and how it proposes to deliver peaceful and a prosperous nation. This study therefore interrogated the UN missions’ performance in implementing the Liberal peace framework. It examined if indeed the location of the UN mission within the Liberal Peacebuilding models may help explain its successes and failures, and whether this approach informs its inability to ensure sustainable peace in the country. Furthermore, the study examined the prospects that the transition to Sustaining peace holds for peace and stability in the DRC. To this end, it sought to understand, whether and how the new Sustaining Peace approach could overcome the pitfalls of the Liberal Peacebuilding model; and its potency to resolve this partly conceptual and partly practical quagmire. This study adopted a descriptive method of analysis based on a case study survey design, using both primary and secondary data, and qualitative analysis. Findings from interviews with the UN and other stakeholders indicate that in contrast to clear academic bifurcations on the meaning of these two frames of action, there is not such clarity within the UN, about the conceptual equivalence of it's operational frames. Sustaining peace, the study found, is a muscular conceptual matrix whose operationsalisation is not linear. It recommends conceptual harmony between theory and practice among other measures, as panacea for peace in the DRC. This justified the usefulness of this enquiry in ending the elucivenss of peace in the DRC.
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    Tracing the historical structure of economic growth in South Africa and identifying policies for inclusive growth and redistribution
    (2024-07-08) Kenneth Creamer
    South African Economic Growth, Redistribution
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    Using Evidence in Policy and Practice
    (Routledge, 2021-08-01) CLEAR-AA
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    VNRs and SDG Evaluations in Anglophone Africa and Latin America: A mapping of common challenges and emerging good practices.
    (2022-12) Hoffmann, Dirk; Dlakavu, Ayabulela; Retama, Karina
    One of the most distinctive features of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development lies with its detailed follow-up and review, guided by a global indicator framework and prominently reflected in Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) submitted by governments. This discussion paper has been produced by a cross-continental Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) evaluation working group, constituted by three officials from DEval, CLEAR-AA and the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results-Latin America and the Caribbean (CLEAR-LAC). The primary objective of this paper is to assess the extent of use of evaluative evidence by governments when compiling their respective Voluntary National Reviews, the latter an implementation tool used to track countries’ progress and achievements vis-à-vis the SDGs. A second objective is to understand other sources of evidence that feed into the development of country VNRs. Third, the document puts forward key findings regarding evidence sources into VNRs, particularly highlighting best practices and challenges from eight sampled countries in Africa and Latin America. This paper purposively sampled four African countries in which CLEAR-AA undertakes evaluation capacity development (ECD), and four Latin American countries where CLEAR-LAC and DEval (through its Focelac+ project ) undertake or support country ECD initiatives. The discussion paper employed a research methodology consisting of an extensive desktop review of VNR, planning and public policy processes, and the state of evaluation capacities in the eight countries. The desktop review is triangulated by key informant interviews of stakeholders involved in the VNR, planning and public policy processes and national evaluation system of each country. Key findings, relative to the paper’s objectives, are as follows: performance monitoring and statistics are a primary source of evidence for VNRs across the African and Latin American countries; government and non-governmental stakeholders have not internalized the value of SDG evaluation in VNR processes and its value in terms of their own internal assessment of progress toward SDGs; limited integration of SDGs and their indicators in the countries’ public policy and national and sector planning cycles; slow response of national evaluation systems in responding to SDGs. Despite these challenges, the authors highlight key emerging best practices from the sampled countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador that can be built upon to integrate SDG evaluation in VNR development, national and sector development planning, as well as national evaluation systems more generally. Lastly, the paper proffers key recommendations for entrenching SDGs in public policy and planning, and promoting evaluative evidence use in VNR development by stressing the value of evaluative evidence in VNR guidelines provided by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA).