In the context of Agenda 2030, all countries are expected to put in place rigorous and effective monitoring and evaluation processes to track progress. Yet countries are at different levels of evaluation capabilities. At the same time, development interventions are becoming more complex, with similar consequences for the evaluations designed to assess them. Thirdly, new technologies and sources of data are increasingly becoming available, and evaluators are continually developing new and more sophisticated methods.
Despite substantive progress made on gender equality and women’s empowerment at the global level, women continue to suffer significant economic, political, legal, social and cultural disadvantages in almost all societies. For this reason, evaluations of projects, programs and policies must take into account these disadvantages and provide stakeholders with sound and compelling evidence to better inform the planning and implementation of future development interventions.
Gender is a very current topic in the evaluation community, and was given an additional impetus with the “no one left behind” imperative of the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, it is important to understand this context/theme in order to adopt evaluation plans that are adequate not only for data collection but also for understanding the results and their use to improve the everyday life of women, children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups.
From 5 to 7 September 2018, the Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) at the African Development Bank (AfDB) hosted AfDB Development Evaluation Week 2018 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, under the theme: “Strengthening Development Impact”.
Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and serves as the backbone of a market economy. This concept is easily transferable to the governance of countries and institutions where the practice of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) serves as one of the most important tools for accountability, lesson learning and results orientation. The supply and demand of evaluation actors, institutions, systems and processes in Africa is critical for the improvement in good governance and achievement of development results.
Evaluation plays a critical role in the effective implementation of good governance structures in Africa, in promoting accountability, learning, development effectiveness, and sustained and rapid economic growth.