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

Chirau, Takunda; Mapitsa, Caitlin Blaser; Amisi, Matodzi

doi:10.1332/174426421x16104826256918

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Policies can set the tone by demonstrating the value placed on collaboration. For example, the South African National Evaluation Policy Framework (2011) set necessary conditions to encourage collaborative evaluative processes (Chirau et al 2021;Goldman et al 2015). This enabled the evaluation of government's response to VAWC to be carried in ways that maximised relationship building.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How relationship and dialogue facilitate evidence use: Lessons from African countries

Amisi

Awal

Pabari³

et al. 2021

African Evaluation Journal

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Background: This article shares lessons from four case studies, documenting experiences of evidence use in different public policies in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).Objectives: Most literature on evidence use in Africa focuses either on one form of evidence, that is, evaluations, systematic reviews or on the systems governments develop to support evidence use. However, the use of evidence in policy is complex and requires systems, processes, tools and information to flow between different stakeholders. In this article, we demonstrate how relationships between knowledge generators and users were built and maintained in the case studies, and how these relationships were critical for evidence use.Method: The case studies were amongst eight case studies carried out for the book entitled ‘Using Evidence in Policy and Practice: Lessons from Africa’. Ethnographic case studies drawn from both secondary and primary research, including interviews with key informants and extensive document reviews, were carried out. The research and writing process involved policymakers enabling the research to access participants’ rich observations.Results: The case studies demonstrate that initiatives to build relationships between different state agencies, between state and non-state actors and between non-state actors are critical to enable organisations to use evidence. This can be enabled by the creation of spaces for dialogue that are sensitively facilitated and ongoing for actors to be aware of evidence, understand the evidence and be motivated to use the evidence.Conclusion: Mutually beneficial and trustful relationships between individuals and institutions in different sectors are conduits through which information flows between sectors, new insights are generated and evidence used.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How relationship and dialogue facilitate evidence use: Lessons from African countries

Amisi

Awal

Pabari³

et al. 2021

African Evaluation Journal

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“…It also includes the perspectives and roles of multiple actors within these large systems. National ECD efforts are similar to those found at the organizational level, including conferences and training to foster individual learning and collaboration as well as the development of a country-level evaluation policy, evaluation standards, evaluation plans, and quality reviews (Chirau et al, 2021; Goldman et al, 2018).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 96%

Interorganizational evaluation capacity building in the public, health and community sectors

Laubek,

Bourgeois

2023

Evaluation

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Evaluation capacity building is generally conceptualized as occurring either at the individual or the organizational levels. However, ongoing societal crises require organizations within or across sectors to work together to find solutions to complex problems and to evaluate joint initiatives. Interorganizational evaluation capacity is required to ensure the ongoing conduct and use of evaluations to support interorganizational decision-making and improvement. This exploratory study describes and analyzes four cases of interorganizational evaluation capacity building initiatives in the public, health and community sectors in Canada and Denmark to identify their key dimensions. Preliminary findings highlight the importance of developing individual and organizational evaluation capacity as well as the need to provide stakeholders with interorganizational evaluation training and projects in which they can work together to better learn about each other’s organizations and challenges and find solutions to common problems.

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“…There is still growing acceptance of evaluation in organizations due to the increased focus on evaluation capacity building and use. Local organizations, such as those leading and implementing community food movements, face myriad challenges including but not limited to: (1) lack of proper evidence for effective decision-making and ineffective institutions; (2) power imbalances and policy conflicts between donors and local movements (Blaser Mapitsa and Chirau, 2019;Masvaure et al, 2020;Chirau et al, 2021); (3) an accountabilitylearning conundrum (Christie and Fierro, 2012); and (4) cultural and geographical influences (Vo and Christie, 2015;Al Hudib and Cousins, 2020), which disproportionately affect minorities, women, youth, and children. These challenges make it necessary to engage in a discourse that explores the transformative learning needed to prepare emerging evaluators to engage meaningfully and fruitfully in the nexus of critical, transformative community food system praxis, and critical, transformative evaluation, for the good of our rather vulnerable food systems.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Transformative learning to promote transformative evaluation of food system praxis

Otieno

Niewolny²,

Archibald³

et al. 2023

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Evaluation ideally plays an important role in determining the value and impact of community food system initiatives and movements, providing recommendations for informed decision-making, learning, and programmatic adjustments. Given that community food system work is characterized by critical praxis rooted in deconstructing dominant epistemologies and addressing social and systemic injustices—including discourses and practices from agroecology, food justice, and food sovereignty movements—simple, technical-rationalist approaches to evaluation are inadequate and inappropriate. In parallel with recent developments in critical food system work, the field of evaluation has evolved toward more critical and transformative approaches—including Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation, indigenous evaluation, feminist evaluation, all generally regrouped within the framework of the transformative evaluation paradigm. At the nexus of these trends, to meet the rising demand for critical evaluative thinkers ready to grapple with the complex, dynamic, and contested questions of community food system praxis evaluation, there is a need to equip emerging evaluators with the requisite knowledge of evaluation approaches. To be ready to be critically reflective evaluators, in food system praxis and beyond, the next generation of emerging evaluators must engage fruitfully and in practically wise ways with the complex and contested aspects of critical food system work. Reflecting on the burgeoning literature on evaluator education and evaluation capacity building (ECB), and given the centrality of critical praxis and transformation in both food system work and evaluation alike, we posit that transformative learning theory has a potential role to play in preparing evaluators to meet these challenges. As such, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to highlight the intersections between critical evaluation approaches and critical food system praxis, and propose transformative learning theory as one way to help emerging evaluators prepare to meaningfully grasp and engage with the complexities manifest at this nexus of critical food evaluation praxis.

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

Cited by 6 publications

References 4 publications

How relationship and dialogue facilitate evidence use: Lessons from African countries

How relationship and dialogue facilitate evidence use: Lessons from African countries

Interorganizational evaluation capacity building in the public, health and community sectors

Transformative learning to promote transformative evaluation of food system praxis

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