EVALUATING DEVELOPMENT
PROJECTS & PROGRAMMES
IN AFRICA
A CASE OF THE NEW PARTNERSHIP
FOR AFRICA’S DEVELOPMENT (NEPAD)
Edwin Tchikata Ijeoma, MBA, PhD.(Pret).
Former Research Specialist
NEPAD Secretariat
DPAM
College of Economics and Management Sciences
University of South Africa
UNISA
PRESENTATION OUTLINE
1.INTRODUCTION
• Evaluation of NEPAD
• NEPAD background and prospects
• Why NEPAD
• NEPAD strategic objectives
2. CONDUCTING EVALUATION IN AFRICA
• Origin
• Constraint
• Complexities
3. EVALUATION PROVIONS ON NEPAD
• Factors that encourage and discourage compliance on
international agreements/practices
• Encourage factors
• Discouraging factors
PRESENTATION OUTLINE (continue)
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CONTEXUALISING THE NEPAD EVALUATION PROCESS
APRM
Assessment of evaluation content of NEPAD
Benchmarking the NEPAD evaluation process
Guides to NEPAD Evaluation
INTRODUCTION
The current levels of the NEPAD service delivery and projects
implementations is not adequate towards bringing about
growth in the economy of African Union member Countries
Achieving the MDGs by 2015
may be a goose chase if measures are not put in place to
evaluate the performance of NEPAD projects and programmes.
PRESENTATION OUTLINE (continue)
5.EXAMPLES OF THE NEPAD EVALUATION DEMAND
• Six milestones
• Six projects
• Six expected deliverables
7.MONITORING & EVALUATION DONOR PERPECTIVES
8.MONITORING & EVALUATION AFRICAN PERSPECTIVES
NEPAD: BACKGROUND AND PROSPECTS
Presidents Mbeki of South Africa
and Wade of Senegal proposed two initiatives
the New Millennium for African Recovery Programme [MAP]
and the Omega Plan [OP] respectively.
THE REC’S IN AFRICA
Central to the NEPAD framework is the need for African
countries to pool their resources together.
strengthening the five Sub-Regional
•SADC,
•MAU,
•ECOWAS,
•CENSAD
•EEC
The NEPAD evaluation system has not been
implemented at any level of the initiative except
on issues of its partnership with development
agencies whose operational procedures require
evaluation process. An effective system of
•regulation,
•continuous evaluation, and
•close monitoring are essential to the success of NEPAD
• draw conclusions and
•make judgments on the outcomes or impact of the
Review Procedures for appointing the APRM Mgt.
•The same political leaders
•Not transparent
•Political manipulations
•Need organizational focus on day-today running of
NEPAD Secretariat ,its projects and programmes
elsewhere in Africa.
THE NEED FOR NEPAD
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the need to address the deep dissatisfaction
According to the World Bank report most notable among these
reforms is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank approved stabilization and structural adjustment programme
(SAP). Poverty is rife in Africa where about half of the total
population lives on less than US $1 per day. Furthermore, in the
past two decades, economic growth across Africa has
lagged behind
NEPAD Strategic Objectives
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African ownership and responsibility,
promotion of self-reliance,
democratic principles,
human rights,
the rule of law and good governance,
promotion of gender equality,
respect for sanctity of human life,
promotion of social justice and fostering
a new relationship with the developed countries
that would be based on mutual respect and
• responsibility and accountability.
NEPAD IDENTIFICATION OF COMMON CONCERNS
Infrastructure Inter-linkages within Africa:
Encouraging Capital Flows Within Africa:
Common and Coordinated Regulatory Frameworks:
Complementary and/or Combined Cross-Border Production:
Agricultural Development & Food Security:
The African Debt Problem:
CONDUCTING EVALUATION IN AFRICA:
ORIGIN, CONSTRAINTS AND COMPLEXITIES
Origin
•The first continental body for evaluation, the African Evaluation Association
•AfrEA was established in 1999.
•first conference in Nairobi in 2002
•second in Cape Town in 2004
•The aim of AfrEA
to promote the M&E agenda in Africa and to promote
participatory workshops. Since the inception of the association, practitioners
would want to see its recommended M&E applications in use in many
African countries. That would be the first test of its acceptance by
governments, development agencies, Non-governmental organizations and
other stakeholders
CONDUCTING EVALUATION IN AFRICA:
ORIGIN, CONSTRAINTS AND COMPLEXITIES
Constraints
In most African countries:
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Fault-finding Negative Perceptions
exposing and criticizing failures and weaknesses
strengths and successes.
Something to be feared or, at best tolerated
M&E arena is donor-dominant and donor-driven
countries and NGO’s depend heavily on World Bank loans
CONDUCTING EVALUATION IN AFRICA:
ORIGIN, CONSTRAINTS AND COMPLEXITIES
Constraints (continue)
•Programmes in African usually come with evaluation requirements;
• Non-availability of fund
•High cost of evaluation
•The government role in fostering learning on projects and
programmes is neglected;
• that the under-utilization or non-utilization of M&E findings
•lack of feedback mechanisms
• lack well-organized and coordinated information systems
Complexities
•Problem of determining
the appropriate variables to use to
represent such performance measures
as benefits and costs (or gains and losses)
•variables considered as gains and losses are not
easily quantifiable and thus immeasurable.
•M&E is more recognized within the private sector
environment in Africa than the public sector. Most
African public sector institutions comply with M&E
process on those projects and programmes where
M&E is a prerequisite for donor funding
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THE NEPAD M&E BACKGROUND
•the Lagos Plan of Action, and Final Act of Lagos (1980);
• the African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981);
• the African Charter for Popular participation in Development (19190);
• the declaration on the political and socio-Economic situation in Africa
and the Fundamental Changes taking Place in the world(1990) and
• the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990).
• the Abuja Treaty establishing the African Economic Community (1991)
• the 1993 Cairo Declaration Establishing the Mechanism for conflict
Prevention, Management and Resolution;
• the Protocol on the Establishment of African Court on Human and
People’s Rights (1998);
• the 1999 Grand Bay (Mauritius) Declaration and Plan of Action for
Promotion and Protection of Human Rights;
• the Framework for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes
of Government (adopted at the 2000 OAU Summit in Lomo, Togo,
and based on eelier decision of the 1999 Algiers OAU Summit; and
• the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation
Factors that Encourage and/or Discourage Compliance
in International Agreements by African States
Encouraging Factors
• Agreements that are relevant to the social needs and aspirations
• Reasonable degrees of understanding and general commitment
in law, agreements and treaties
• Presence of institutions for law enforcements that have the capacity
to enforce the agreements
• The presence of the critical mass of professionals in the various
organs of the institutions for enforcing agreements
• The existence of organized and active formations in civil society,
Discouraging Factors
•Exclusion or marginalization and inequality among states
• Lack of capacity in the political, social sectors on the part of the states,
• Deliberate breach of the agreement by the state, often informed by the
calculated risks of not being caught or punished;
• Conscious decision not to comply because of real or perceived
unreasonableness or unfairness of the agreement/treaty;
• Irresponsibility by the political leadership and other managers of state
affairs as a result of corruption, negligence, lack of patriotism and the
presence of the culture of lawlessness;
• Weak incorporation of international agreements in the domestic or
national popular domestic space;
• Lack of knowledge and hence lack of ownership and oversight by the
general public about agreements entered into by the states and
• Lack of existence and /or efficacy of external enforcement mechanisms
and effective sanctions.
CONTEXTUALISING THE NEPAD
EVALUATION PROCESS
• Democracy and Good political governance;
• Economic and Corporate Governance;
• Socio-Economic Development and
• African Peer-Review Mechanism (APRM).
The APRM Mandate
The mandate of the RM is to ensure that the policies
and practices of the participating countries conform
to the agreed political, economic and corporate
governance
values, codes and standards contained in the Declaration
on Democracy, political, Economic and Corporate
Governance. The APRM is a mutually agreed instrument
for self-monitoring by the participating member
governments.
The APRM Primary Objectives
The primary purpose of the APRM is to foster the
adoption of policies, standards and practices that
lead to political stability, high economic growth,
sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional
and continental economic integration through sharing
of experiences and reinforcement of successful and
good practices, including identifying deficiencies and
assessing the need for capacity building.
APRM Principles
Every review exercise carried out under the authority
of the Mechanism must be technically competent,
credible and free of political manipulations. These
stipulations together constitute the core guiding
principles of the APRM.
Assessment of the Evaluation
Content of NEPAD
The analysis on the NEPAD evaluation process
and its provisions in the NEPAD documents tend
to focus on issues of
•codes and standards and
•African Peer Review Mechanism.
•APRM seem to
be an outstanding instrument for NEPAD
Benchmarking the NEPAD
Evaluation Process
• the level of domestic and foreign direct investments
(separating those influences by the NEPAD initiative
and those that are not influenced by NEPAD);
• the rise and fall of trade and capital flows since market
access is a key NEPAD goal;
• African standard of living as measured by Human
development index e.g. the use of NEPAD as an
election issue in African states;
• number of states subscribing to the APRM or those
failing in the review process;
• level of corruption, political freedom in African countries;
• an assessment of democratization of government and
human rights abuse;
• progress in the consolidation of the existing Regional
Economic Communities from seven to five envisaged
under the NEPAD framework.
M & E TO IMPROVE NEPAD INITIATIVE
• Substantive government demand is a prerequisite for successful
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institutionalization
Role of incentives
Key role of a powerful ‘champion’
Start with a diagnosis of existing M&E
Centrally-driven, by capable ministry
Build reliable ministry data systems
Danger of over-engineering the system
Utilization is the measure of ‘success’
Limitations of relying on government laws, decrees and regulations
Role of structural arrangements to ensure M&E objectivity and quality
A long-haul effort, requiring patience
OTHER FACTORS FOR IMPROVEMENT
• Incentives are an important part of the demand side
• No government build M&E systems because of intrinsic merit
• Another dimension to the demand side
• Creating a comprehensive M&E systems
• Stewardship of the process
COMMON MISTAKES ON
MONITORING EVALUATE
• Over-engineering the system
• Unclear performance indicators
• Information breakdown
• Poor quality of data
• Limitations of discipline
• Structural arrangements
M&E DONOR PERSPECTIVES
• Dependent on international aid
• Strong accountability pressure on donors for results
• Increase in the level of donor involvement
• Increase in the number of evaluation institutions
AFRICAN PERSPECTIVES
• too rigid and too political
• meet for sound evaluation information
• poverty & desease
• debt reduction a forgiveness
• reliance on donor for evaluation work
AFRICAN PRSP PREPARATIONS
•Financial management information systems – to support
better financial tracking
• Public expenditure tracking surveys – these enable
‘leakage’ or the effects of corruption to be traced
• Service delivery surveys
• Rapid appraisals – for example, of ‘problem’ projects
or programs
• National and sectoral statistical collections – especially
relating to national priorities such as the MDGs
• Sector ministries’ administrative data
WAY FORWARD
• Demand is weak but we need to strengthen the work
• Evaluation associations has a huge role to play
• Highly influential evaluation may be more persuasive
Example of the possible NEPAD Projects Evaluation
(Milestones, Expected deliverables and Executioners)
Milestones
NEPAD Projects/Expected Deliverables
Executioner
Milestone
1
To evaluate and assess measures and instruments currently
used by various global and regional development agencies on
their programmes and activities in Africa.
Monitoring &
Evaluation
Strategists/
Experts
To develop an African own measures and instruments for
assessing the impacts of (donors) development partners,
agencies and institutions in African countries.
Mile stone 2
To develop measures and instruments for assessing the
impacts of the NEPAD programmes in all African Union
countries.
Milestone 3
To develop measures and instruments for assessing
countries and regional capacities to respond to major
NEPAD programmes.
Milestone
4
To facilitate establishment of an African High-level
Voluntary Service that will comprise of Retired African
Leaders, Heads of States, Statesmen and women, Role
models with good
Milestones
NEPAD Projects/Expected Deliverables
Executioner
Milestone
Five
To initiate an effective feedback Communication
Strategy that will have country and Continentwide coverage for disseminating Africa’s socioeconomic development information on a quarterly
basis.
Monitoring and
Evaluation
Strategists/Experts
“ NEPAD Project Evaluation Insight” may be
established aimed at profiling socio-economic
projects and programmes taking place in African
countries, regions under the NEPAD programmes.
To avoid the current patterns of backlogs being
experienced in Project and programmes
evaluation of NEPAD. The journal will lay
greater emphasis on the prospects, challenges,
innovation, creativity and sum-total of successes,
failures and lessons learnt in the process. The
journal will also give regular common position of
African country’s opinion on several continental
and global issues.
Milestone
Six
To facilitate outcome-based Working Relations Between the AU
Commission and the NEPAD Secretariat
Paragraph 9(iii) of the Maputo Declaration requires that the working
relations between the AU Commission and the NEPAD Secretariat,
especially for programme coordination and harmonisation, be
formalised. Institutionally, the structure of the AU Commission
provides for a NEPAD Coordinating Unit in the Office of the
Chairperson of the AU Commission to be staffed by not more than
five officers. .
The implementation of this proposal will place emphasis and priority
on ensuring efficient and effective reporting and communication
between the Commission and the NEPAD Secretariat. Formalising
the relations between the AU and NEPAD programmes need to take
into considerations the programmes of the Commission as approved
by the Maputo Summit, especially those of the eight portfolios, on the
one hand, and those of NEPAD as contained in the NEPAD Initial
Action Plan and subsequent approvals by the HSGIC, on the other
hand.
As a way forward, there is a need for development of mechanisms for
institutionalised consultations and engagement between NEPAD
Secretariat and AU Commission will enhance mutual understanding
between staff and officers of the two institutions.
THANK YOU