African Parliamentarians Engage in Evidence-Based SDG and Agenda 2063 Reporting
If Africa is to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it will require strengthened national evaluation capacities that respond to policies and frameworks leading to actionable goals. To this end, the continent is on a positive trajectory in the field of evaluation and evaluative knowledge is being mainstreamed and integrated into national planning frameworks.
In line with the above, the Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to United Nations, UNECA, UNICEF and the African Union, co-organized a multi-stakeholder workshop on the theme "Towards Evidence-Based SDG and Agenda 2063 Reporting: Strengthening National Evaluation Capacities for the Africa We Want". The forum was held on 10-12 December 2018, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The forum, among others, sought to raise awareness on the importance of Agendas 2030 and 2063, their follow-up and review processes, highlighting the essence of evidence-based Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) that utilize rigorous disaggregated data and country-led evaluations. It also emphasizes the relevance of embedding evaluation in national plans to inform child and youth-oriented national policies, and identify technical assistance options to strengthen national capacities for sound country-led evaluations and evidence-based VNRs in Africa.
The Vice-Chair of the African Parliamentarians' Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE), Hon. Evelyn Mpagi-Kaabule, represented the Network at the event, which took place in August. Hon. Mpagi-Kaabule chaired the panel on "Working in Partnerships for the Africa We Want: Supporting National Capacities for Sound Country-led Evaluations and Evidence-based VNRs", and also delivered the “key messages and takeaways” from the first day. In her contribution, Hon. Mpagi-Kaabule stressed the need to include evaluations in all national plans and to develop evidence-based policies. She highlighted the importance of building policy and decision makers’ capacity in the field of development evaluation. She stressed the need for all stakeholders in evaluation to work together to achieve Agenda 2030 and 2063. She further called on participants to share the discussions and resolutions of the workshop with their colleagues and partners back home to advance implementation of the action points and thus achieve the workshop objectives. Finally, she reiterated the need to follow up on their respective work plans at country level, to advance the implementation of VNRs, in order to ensure that the continent meets its SDG targets.
APNODE considers it an honor to play an active role in this High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HPLF). The Network and its members acknowledge the value of VNRs and plan to support such efforts via the strengthening of national capacities for sound country-led evaluations and evidence-based reporting in their respective countries.
For more information about APNODE, please visit: http://idev.afdb.org/en/page/african-parliamentarians%E2%80%99-network-development-evaluation-apnode