Independent Magazine - Issue n.3, 2022

EVALUATION AS A DRIVER OFDEMOCRACY IN AFRICA

“In Africa, evaluation is seen as advancing democracy and improving rural livelihoods”, stated Indran A. Naidoo, Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) in his keynote address during the 10th African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) International Conference, on 16 March 2022.

Hosted by the Zimbabwe Evaluation Association, the Conference took place from 14 - 18 March 2022 under the theme “Evaluation that leaves no-one behind: empowering progress towards the Africa we want amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the other crises and opportunities facing us”. Participation in the conference was drawn from a wide range of stakeholders on the African continent and globally, including National Evaluation Associations, the AfrEA Emerging Evaluator Network, world leaders in the monitoring and evaluation field and students.

In his presentation, Dr Naidoo traced the growth and journey of evaluation in the continent, from the 3rd Africa Evaluation Conference, held in Cape Town in 2004, co-hosted by the South Africa Public Service Commission. The keynote address was dedicated to Dr Sulley Gariba and Professor Stan Sangweni, both late, who have been though leaders in developing the evaluation profession on the continent, providing support to the practice, and advancing evaluation from an African perspective which is very rooted in communities. Dr Naidoo also paid tribute to the Conference organizer for AfrEA, Dr Zenda Ofir, for her thought leadership.

The Conference acted as the foundation for promoting and advocating AfrEA’s ‘Made in Africa’ approach, and allowed knowledge sharing, collaboration and networking with a wide range of international organizations and individuals. Through this interactive approach, the event promoted learning and action to support evaluation practices that contribute to responsive, agile and sustained development in Africa. In addition, the conference also facilitated building the theory and practice of evaluation in Africa by providing a platform for the development and sharing of a high-quality body of contextually-relevant knowledge on evaluation.

The African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) was founded in 1999, in response to Africa’s growing appeal for advocacy, information sharing and advanced capacity building in evaluation. The organisation’s chief focus was to counter limited evaluation opportunities by building strategic bridges for African evaluators to connect, network and share experiences.