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hierarchies, rather than individual-oriented,egalitarian social structures, will require verydifferent evaluation frameworks andmethodologies.African evaluators need to understand how tomonitor and evaluate (pathways towards)concepts and goals essential to achievingeffective and sustained development. Keydocuments on global, Africa-wide and nationaldevelopment strategies emphasize theimportance of capacity strengthening andempowerment, sustainability 9 , growth withequity and increasingly also of resilience. Inspite of both development and evaluationrhetoric there is either little expertise worldwidein the monitoring and evaluation of theseconcepts, and/or limited efforts in Africa to putexisting knowledge in practice. In spite of itsimportance there is a particular dearth of workon the monitoring and evaluating of resilience(at the level of the individual, community,country, continent or planet) in the face ofshocks such as conflict or disaster, and ofslowly evolving situations such as increasingimpoverishment or climate change. Andalthough much more is known aboutmonitoring and evaluating empowerment andcapacity, this knowledge is often poorly appliedin evaluation practice.Such issues require extensive expertise inworking with complexity, systems,relationships, unintended outcomes and thesalience of context – all areas in whichcapacities on the continent need to bedeveloped. Yet the current strong emphasis onspecific types of impact evaluation continues tohave the potential to divert attention andresources away from building a knowledge baseon these extremely important issues.African evaluators and other stakeholders needto own and advance monitoring and evaluationtheory and practice. For all the reasons above,monitoring and evaluation need to bedeveloped and owned by Africans, and used fortheir own benefit. It should not be imposedfrom outside or seen as only useful to others.What is done elsewhere should inform andenrich African evaluation, and vice versa. It istherefore crucial for the African evaluationcommunity to strive to ensure that its capacitiesand approaches are as relevant, high quality9 In the sense of transformative change and thesustainability of positive development outcomes andbenefitsand visible as they can be in support of thedevelopment of the continent. For these reasonsthe objectives and initiatives of the new “Madein Africa” initiative of the African EvaluationAssociation (AfrEA) deserve praise and support.In Summary: Some Key Priorities for theEvaluation Profession in AfricaThe mastery of critical monitoring andevaluation approaches and methods: In thelight of the above, evaluators in Africa need tomaster – and clearly display and communicatetheir mastery – of important concepts andmethodologies not yet commonly found incapacity-strengthening efforts on the continent.These include, among others, challenging andsometimes controversial issues such assophisticated work on systems-basedmonitoring and evaluation, theories of changeand theory-based (impact) monitoring andevaluation for adaptive management (Thisrather than rigid, over-simplified logframes).Equally, we need to strengthen our attention tothe politics and values underlying development,evaluation and of the use of evidence and indealing with the micro-macro disconnect.; Weneed to build our capacity to use newtechnologies and to draw on large data sets inour evaluations. Crucially, we need increasinglyto be able to marshal and synthesize theevidence from monitoring, from self-evaluationand from independent evaluation to achieveenhanced learning, accountability andknowledge generation.In other words, our skill-set includes but is notlimited to the monitoring and evaluation of (i)policies and strategies, and their alignment andcoherence, from local to global levels; (ii) thescaling of pilot efforts; (iii) approaches toempowerment and institution strengthening; (iv)efforts at innovation for development; (vnewdevelopment financing mechanisms fordevelopment, such as impact investing ; and (vi)sustainability and resilience. Evaluators alsoneed to be committed to, and astute in seekingand finding the truth behind rhetoric andpropaganda.Innovation in monitoring and evaluation theoryand practice: Mastery of both basic andadvanced aspects has to be complemented byresearch on, and innovation in, monitoring andevaluation on the continent. Little has beendone in this regard, or otherwise has lowvisibility (Carden and Alkin, 2012).African Thought Leaders Forum on Evaluation and Development, Bellagio, Nov 2012 29
Here, the development and evaluationarchitecture – including related and otherprofessional associations, and organizationssuch as CLEAR and other academic centres -can play a critical role. Communities of practicethat draw from a wide range of sectors andactors can promote and coordinate initiativesaimed at cultivating thought-leadership andinnovation in both evaluation theory andpractice. This is also where “ Made in Africa”evaluation and indigenous frameworks formonitoring and evaluation can bring newperspectives to the international evaluationbody of work, or can complement work on newideas for the developmental state in Africa. Butfor sufficient profile in a world still dominatedby knowledge generated in the West, whateveris done should be systematically documentedand disseminated in many different formats fordifferent purposes using tailor-made influencingstrategies.Positioning the evaluation profession in Africaand globally: The evaluation profession inAfrica is vital for development. The immediatelyuseful, integrative and strategic nature ofevaluation should attract some of the bestpeople from the continent. The community ofevaluators should be strong, capable and wellpositioned for influence at all levels -community, national, regional, Africa-wide andglobally. We should be able to communicate itsutility as individuals and as a collective, and itscontributions in an authoritative, evidencebasedor evidence-informed manner. Weshould be able to hold our own on any local,national, regional or international platform, andelicit respect and authority.This requires what is now called “thoughtleadership” in theory and practice,complemented by “practice leadership”. Theseare not elitist or exclusionary terms. Instead,they are integral to how the continent crafts itsfuture on its own terms, to increasing levels ofprosperity and social justice.REFERENCESAfrican Development Bank, 2012. Jobs, Justice and the Arab Spring: Inclusive Growth in North Africa.African Development Bank Group.African Union and NEPAD, 2011. African consensus and position on development effectiveness: Aidreforms for Africa’s development. Document prepared for the Fourth High Level Forum on AidEffectiveness, Busan, Republic of Korea.DST, 2012. Final Report of the Ministerial Review Committee on the Science, Technology andInnovation Landscape in South Africa. Department of Science and Technology of South Africa.Khan, M. H., 2005. Markets, states and democracy: patron-client networks and the case for democracyin developing countries. Democratization 12 (5): 705-725.Maxwell, S. 2009. Eliminating world poverty: building our common future. Development Policy Review,2009, 27 (6): 767-770.McKinsey Global Institute, 2010. Lions on the Move: the Progress and Potential of African Economies.McKinsey Global Institute.OECD, 2012. Perspectives on Global Development 2012: Social Cohesion in a Shifting World. OECDPublishing.Rifkin, J., 2011. The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, theEconomy and the World. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.Routley, L., 2012. Developmental states: a review of the literature. ESID Working Paper no. 3. EffectiveStates and Inclusive Development Research Centre, University of Manchester.Swilling, 2010. Africa 2050 – Growth, resource productivity and decoupling. Paper produced for theUNEP International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management.Swilling, M. 2012. Just transitions and the next long-term development cycle: some warnings from theAfrican continent. Paper presented to the International Conference on Sustainability Transitions,Denmark, August 2012.UN Economic Commission for Africa, 2009. African Governance Report II. Oxford University Press.African Thought Leaders Forum on Evaluation and Development, Bellagio, Nov 2012 30
Page 3 and 4: AFRICAN THOUGHT LEADERS FORUM ONEVA
Page 6 and 7: FOREWORD - ZENDA OFIRThis Bellagio
Page 8 and 9: etween local experiences and knowle
Page 10 and 11: institutional regime of past decade
Page 12 and 13: EMERGING THEMES11
Page 14 and 15: to be accounted for in development
Page 16 and 17: projects to partner in order to gen
Page 18 and 19: In order to give life to the initia
Page 20 and 21: ANNEXESAfrican Thought Leaders Foru
Page 22 and 23: Contemporary Development Challenges
Page 24 and 25: (for example) Nigeria around the pe
Page 26 and 27: the imperatives outlined above. We
Page 30 and 31: UN Economic Commission for Africa a
Page 32 and 33: histories, cultures, linguistic and
Page 34 and 35: • A critical analysis of the hist
Page 36 and 37: How would the two models - the Afri
Page 38 and 39: Institutionalisation Of Evaluation
Page 40 and 41: initiated by their predecessors, wi
Page 42 and 43: ON-LINE COMMENTS FROM AFRICAEVALUAT
Page 44 and 45: egional!bodies!such!as!AU,!the!regi
Page 46 and 47: 7 Evaluation framesthat captureunsp
Page 48 and 49: Extend the influence of this meetin
Page 50 and 51: PAPER 6 - EVALUATION CAPACITY DEVEL
Page 52 and 53: PROF. LAILA EL BARADEI - EgyptProf.
Page 54 and 55: MR. STEPHEN PORTER - South AfricaMr
Page 56 and 57: AGENDADay 1: The Development-Evalua

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