At its worst, monitoring and evaluation reinforces donors' exercise of powerand disempowers others-in their relationship with in-country stakeholders" (OECD, 2012:267). This chapter describes the findings of a review of evaluation reports commissioned by three Scandinavian donors-the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), the Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). The 142 reports (from 2005 to 2016) examined in the review, focused on African interventions and were published on the donors' respective websites.
Background: South Africa and other developing countries are facing an ever-increasing demand for competent evaluators. In addition, increasing demands are being placed on those who become evaluators. What does this mean for evaluation education in its current form and state in South Africa? In addition, what possible responses can be there to the diverse drivers of change within the dynamic social context in which evaluators operate?Objectives: This article aims to address some of the questions related to the supply and demand profile of evaluation in South Africa, which may be useful for other developing countries.Method: A literature review and key informant interviews were carried out to answer the key research questions.Results: The article describes the provision of formal evaluation education and the challenges currently facing university-based offerings. The study provides a framework for considering the interaction between the supply and demand elements in the field of evaluation. Strategies are proposed for strengthening the supply of evaluators and ensuring that these evaluators can respond to the growing demands being placed on them.Conclusion: This article is valuable for all evaluation stakeholders as it provides insight into the academic landscape of evaluation in a developing context and explores practical ways to support and strengthen capacity building efforts in similar contexts.
There has been a resurgence of interest in training programmes for higher education leaders and management (HELM) at African universities in recent times. Although there have been a few cases of evaluation studies of such programmes in Africa, a more systematic review of the lessons learnt through these programmes has not been done. This book aims to document and reflect on the learnings from intervention programmes at three African higher education councils. It is clear that university leaders face many leadership and management challenges. This is the starting point of the book. More specific questions that are addressed include: The book commences with an introduction that sets the historical context for this initiative. The remainder of the book is divided into three main parts:
Evaluation competency frameworks identify the skills and knowledge required for the professional practice of evaluation. These competency frameworks are used, among other purposes, to craft evaluation training programs, courses, and activities. To date, the link between case-centered teaching and learning and the development of evaluation competencies has not been explored systematically. Our study sought to focus on this link through an exploratory survey of evaluation instructors. Our findings reveal that evaluation instructors recognize the potential of case-centered teaching in supporting the development of evaluation competencies and that they use cases towards competency development. However, some challenges remain, such as the accessibility and adaptability of cases to particular competency domains and instructional contexts.Evaluators require a vast array of skills, knowledge, and experience to make appropriate decisions about how best to design evaluation studies, manage them as they unfold, and make judgments about the quality and value of interventions. The skills, knowledge, and values critical to evaluation practice are articulated in various sets of evaluation competencies, published by different professional evaluation associations. These competencies include aspects related to the technical and management skills required to carry out evaluation work and the interpersonal and contextual skills necessary to adapt to changing circumstances and engage stakeholders appropriately.Linfield and Tovey (2021) define a case as: "A series of events, real or imagined, that tell an evaluation story to promote student learning, including illustrating a concept, skill development, and facilitating critical thinking, among others." (p. 13). Case-centered teaching is particularly well-suited to developing such competencies (Brock & Alford, 2015; Schafer, 2016). Case-centered teaching draws upon the existing knowledge and experiences of the learner while introducing new concepts, theories, and practices within a framework that can promote retention and retrieval (Austin & Packard, 2009). In addition, it encourages
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