The emergence of government evaluation systems in Africa: The case of Benin, Uganda and South Africa

This article documents the experiences of three countries -  South Africa, Benin and Uganda  - in deepening and widening their national evaluation systems and some of the cross-cutting lessons that can be drawn from their experiences.

These three countries, along with the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR) Anglophone Africa and the African Development Bank, are partners in a pioneering African partnership called Twende Mbele, funded initially by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) and Hewlett Foundation, aiming to jointly strengthen monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems and work with other countries to develop M&E capacity and share experiences. The paper draws from reports from each of the countries, as well as work undertaken for the evaluation of the South African national evaluation system. 

Initial lessons include the importance of a central unit to drive the evaluation system, developing a national evaluation policy, prioritising evaluations through an evaluation agenda or plan and taking evaluation to sub-national levels. The countries are exploring the role of non-state actors, and there are increasing moves to involve Parliament. Key challenges include difficulty in getting a learning approach in government, capacity issues and ensuring follow-up. These lessons are being used to support other countries seeking to establish national evaluation systems, such as Ghana, Kenya and Niger.