eVALUation Matters: Building supply and demand for evaluation in Africa

Abstract

Evaluation plays a critical role in the effective implementation of good governance structures in Africa, in promoting accountability, learning, development effectiveness, and sustained and rapid economic growth. The lack of an evaluation culture hinders good governance based on evidence-informed decision-making. But creating an evaluation culture requires more than enacting a policy or even having an evaluation unit - there must be buy-in from government ministries and agencies, to parliaments, to the grassroots level. There must be a steady supply of high quality evaluations, and the demand for these evaluations in order to ensure their use. When decision-makers want to use evidence from monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems to assist them in making choices, then there can be said to be a demand for M&E. On the supply side, when there is sufficient national capacity to supply M&E personnel / practitioners and information, and those in research and academia are improving on M&E methodologies, the same can be said of adequate national M&E supply.