Evaluation2 – Evaluating the national evaluation system in South Africa: What has been achieved in the first 5 years? (original) (raw)

Developing South Africa’s national evaluation policy and system: First lessons learned

African Evaluation Journal, 2015

This article describes the development of the national evaluation system in South Africa, which has been implemented since 2012, led by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME, previously the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation) in the Presidency. It suggests emerging results but an evaluation of the evaluation being carried out in 2015 will address this formally. Responding to dissatisfaction with government services, in 2009 the government placed a major emphasis on monitoring and evaluation (M&E). A ministry and department were created, initially focusing on monitoring but in 2011 developing a national evaluation policy framework, which has been rolled out from 2012. The system has focused on improving performance, as well as improved accountability. Evaluations are proposed by national government departments and selected for a national evaluation plan. The relevant department implements the evaluations with the DPME and findings go to Cabinet ...

The National Evaluation Policy Landscape in Africa: A Comparison

2018

The National Evaluation Policy landscape in Africa: A comparison The demand for National Evaluation Policies (NEPs) has gained traction in Africa as more countries acknowledge the value of evaluation in enhancing efficiency, effectiveness, and equity in public and development management. As these countries implement developmental programmes and projects they require appropriate and effective monitoring and evaluation systems to measure performance, assess impact and draw lessons for future programmes and projects. Similarly, the Sustainable Development Goals call for country-led systems to measure effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, sustainability, and the impact of development interventions.

A stakeholder view of the development of national evaluation systems in Africa

2020

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 the functioning of parliamentary ME 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 M&E capacities in countries studied.

Policies for evidence: a comparative analysis of Africa’s national evaluation policy landscape

Evidence & Policy, 2021

Background: African countries are developing their monitoring and evaluation policies to systematise, structure and institutionalise evaluations and use of evaluative evidence across the government sector. The pace at which evaluations are institutionalised and systematised across African governments is progressing relatively slowly. Aims and objectives: This article offers a comparative analysis of Africa’s national evaluation policy landscape. The article looks at the policies of Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya (not adopted) and Uganda. To achieve the aim we unpack the different characteristics taken by the national evaluation policies, emerging lessons for countries who wish to develop a national evaluation policy, and key challenges faced by countries with regard to evaluation policy development and implementation. The article draws on both a desktop review and action research approaches from the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results Anglophone Africa to build nat...

Developing evaluation standards and assessing evaluation quality

African Evaluation Journal, 2015

The article explains the rationale for the development of standards for evaluation practice, the process followed in developing those standards, and how those standards inform the quality assessment of evaluations. Quality assessment of evaluations are conducted as a routine activity of the South African National Evaluation System (NES). The importance of quality assessment for improving the state of evaluation practice in South Africa is illustrated by presenting results from the quality assessments undertaken to date. The paper concludes by discussing the progress on the development of a public Evaluations Repository to manage and provide access to completed evaluations and their quality assessment results, and offering some concluding analytical remarks.