Development evaluation approaches have grown into a largely uniform global practice, in particular among development organizations ascribing to internationally agreed norms such as the OECD-DAC evaluation criteria. However, these accepted common approaches have increasingly come under scrutiny by those who argue that the roots of most of the evaluation practices commonly used in development have been developed by organizations from the Global North, making them unsuitable for use in the Global South.
Some evaluation practitioners have called into question the relevance and effectiveness of current evaluation approaches in the African context, calling for a “Made in Africa” evaluation that takes into account local values, assumptions, and practices.
This edition takes stock of some of the theoretical approaches towards a “Made in Africa” evaluation, exploring indigenous approaches and how they could fast-track the achievement of the continental development agenda. It attempts to answer key questions such as: What is meant by “Made in Africa” evaluation and how does it differ from other approaches? What unique insights could an African cognitive lens bring to evaluation? How should countries go about creating indigenous evaluation practices?
