B. Chilisa, T. Major,M. Ramasobana,  W. Nderitu, J. Govender, S. Koloi-Keaikitse, F. Mwaijande,  B. Koyabe, Gaotlhobogwe,  R. Nabbumba,   M. Frehiwot, M. B. Pheko, S. Molosiwa and C. Akligo

There is a call to strengthen African-led development by empowering communities, practitioners, and policymakers to design, monitor, and evaluate projects that promote community participation, ownership, and sustainability. Do you know of projects/interventions in which evaluators, project commissioners, and funders report success, yet on the ground, change is minimal? The world is changing, and there is a push not only to evaluate projects/interventions  for economic benefits but also to consider social and environmental benefits. The challenge is how to go beyond the practice of using tried and tested evaluation frameworks and tools that originate from the global North to include the use of frameworks and tools emanating  from the philosophies, values, histories, and experiences of the two thirds  majority of the world, whose voices are not visible in the global evaluation ecosystem. How can we decolonize evaluation so that the methods are aligned with indigenous paradigms and the world views of the communities? How can we make evaluations of interventions culturally and contextually responsive to the needs and priorities of communities?  

In response to the challenge, the University of Botswana, in partnership with the University of Ghana, Africa Nazarene University, the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA), Tiyimele Consultants, and Data Innovators, formed the Pan-African Indigenous Evaluation Consortium (PAIEC) to map and co-create innovative, African-rooted evaluation frameworks (AREF) and tools. The project, funded by the Mastercard Foundation and led by the University of Botswana, conducted a systematic review to identify trends, leading thinkers, implementers, and funders in African-rooted evaluation.  A SenseMaker narrative survey established how evaluation practitioners, implementers, and academics perceive reality, values and ways of knowing and how they apply these perspectives in evaluation practice.  A total of 101 stories were collected from 25 African countries. 

Findings from the two processes guided the development of African rooted evaluation frameworks (AREF).    Five frameworks were co-created at a three-day workshop attended by 48 participants, including African think tanks, local and global evaluation experts, funders and commissioners, government representatives, development partners, leading implementers of AREF, graduate students, university academics, and civil society. The frameworks were pilot-tested in Malawi, Zambia, and Uganda.  

All the co-created frameworks recognise that project activities are part of a larger system, governed by an understanding of interconnectedness, interdependence and relationship-building. All projects, therefore, emphasise relationship-building, prioritising community needs, cultural sensitivity, and respect for all.  Ownership of evaluation has remained with the elites, while sustainability has become a form of evaluation conducted ± 2 years post the project ends. All frameworks include a built-in sustainability design.  Nevertheless, each framework addresses a specific gap in the evaluation landscape as follows:

Ngwanake Cultural Empowerment Framework (NECF): NECF strengthens youth capacity to integrate indigenous knowledge and technology into project design and monitoring and evaluation (M&E). It is a participant-driven evaluation in which youth conduct their own evaluation with the support of the evaluator.

People, Environment, Place, Space, and Time Context-Responsive Framework (PEPST): It focuses  on context, exploring how a worldview that honours people’s relationships with one another and with the universe may influence project/intervention  implementation and perspectives on what counts as project benefits and success. This includes building relationships, changing mindsets, integrating knowledge systems, caring for the environment, and future thinking, all of which are important to measure to advance a transformative agenda.

The Pamoja Safarini Theory of Practice (PSTP): It’s an indigenous Theory of Change that integrates African worldviews. The framework introduces six interconnected principles that guide programme design, implementation, and evaluation across the full project cycle.

The Engagement, Participation, Involvement, and Ownership (EPIO): A planning and management framework that ensures communities are meaningfully engaged at every stage of project design and implementation. It promotes community collective ownership of projects, enabling community-driven decision-making and long-term project impact. It brings a new approach to planning, managing, and evaluating projects that leads to people-centred solutions, engagement, participation, involvement, and ownership.

Community Language-Based Evaluation Framework (COLABEV): The COLABEV is a four-stage framework that enables evaluators to conduct evaluations across the initiation, design, data collection, reporting, and communication phases, using community languages.

Can you use any of these frameworks in conducting an evaluation?  In this article, we present the PEPST framework and its application. Other frameworks are scheduled for presentation throughout the year 2026.

 PEPST Context Responsive Framework

The PEPST Context Responsive framework is an African-rooted, people and context-centred evaluation tool that promotes a holistic approach to contextualising project/intervention  planning and evaluation, moving evaluation towards systems thinking and building futures.  Context is the interconnectedness and relationships among people and the environment. The value of collective responsibility and the co-creation of knowledge through interactions in a spiritual world is central to the meaning of context. Spirituality refers to the worldview that the living and the non-living, that is, the human beings and all nature, are related.  The people must respect and nurture the environment. The concepts of environmental justice and environmental responsibility are drawn from this worldview.

The framework is grounded on: 1) Connectedness, Interdependence, and Harmony, 2) Preservation of the sacred, 3) Mutual respect and humility (relationality),4) Sensitivity to cultural norms and values of any group, 5) Responsibility and accountability to and by members of the society and 6) relational coexistence. The framework has five elements: People, Environment, Place, Space and Time. These are systems of relationships that cannot be separated, offering an integrated approach to evaluation that requires understanding of how projects/interventions operate within a larger system of people, the environment, and a complex social, cultural, and political context.  Each element is outlined below:

People

Figure 1: A depiction of the People element

There is emphasis on the importance of interactions and conversations between project commissioners, designers, implementers, relevant community structures, and intended project recipients. These initial conversations must recognise that people bring their unique cultural practices, beliefs, and values, which can significantly influence how they understand the problem the project/intervetion aims to address, how it will be implemented, and what success indicators should be used, fostering stakeholder participation. Participation measures include inclusive participation, strategies and activities to build sustainable relationships, changes in mindset where differences exist, and the inclusion of diverse perspectives. Evaluators can explore the following questions: Who designed this project? Who implemented? Who owns it? Through the joint use of cocreation and qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods participatory  approaches or data tools, the following questions can guide project/intervention planning and inform judgments about community participation and expected outcomes:

1. Who are the stakeholders and what are their roles and responsibilities?
2. Are there strategies to facilitate communication, engagement, and relationship building among stakeholders, and how do these impact the success of the project/intervention
3. Are there strategies to address the change of mindsets where stakeholders have different perspectives, and how does this impact project/intervention success
4. What are the co-created project/ intervention objectives,s implementation strategies and impact evaluation indicators?
5. How has stakeholder participation influenced the adaptation of the project/intervention?

Environment

The environment refers to the conditions, such as government policies, gender policies, socio-cultural norms, and beliefs that inform collective understanding of the problem to be addressed, environmental responsibility, and the use of technology necessary for the project’s success. Environmental responsibility requires project designers and recipients to make conscious efforts to minimise environmental harm by ensuring that project activities do not damage the environment.   Guided by the Ubuntu principle of respect for one another and the environment, projects and interventions should cause no harm to people or the environment. The evaluation focuses on resources and the implementation process; environmental impediments to project outcomes and impact; and project activities that might harm the environment.  While this aspect of the framework can be used for project planning, it is strongly recommended for assessing project inputs and the implementation process.

Figure 2: A summary of the Environment element

Data tools can be co-created to address the following themes:

1. Cultural practices that impacted the implementation, output and outcome
2. Gender norms that impacted the implementation, output, and outcome
3. Policies that affected implementation
4. Activities that addressed mindsets to optimise project outcomes, continuity, and sustainability.
5. Activities that have the potential to damage the environment or community relations
6. Overall implementation success and impact on project outcomes.

 Place and Space

This aspect of the tool continues the assessment of the planning and implementation process, with an emphasis on inclusivity and the integration of local indigenous science with other knowledge systems to support localised solutions, expansion, growth, and a forward-looking approach. It makes a judgment on the project/ intervetion’s adaptation to local contexts and the resulting outcomes.

Figure 3: A depiction of the Place and Space element

Place refers to the history and cultural contexts in which the project will occur and how they shape the project’s purpose and understanding. Every place has a local history and culture that bind people together and inform their daily interactions. This history is preserved in folklore: stories, sayings, and songs. Space refers to beliefs about the physical environment of project activities, which may have a positive or negative impact on the project. People have connections to their land and space, and there may be areas where it would be against community practice to site a project.

Under Place and Space, the evaluator moves away from the practice of implementing programs as planned, to accommodate the project’s adaptation to context and community needs, and to support community participation, including identifying areas where changes in project implementation and outcomes have occurred in response to the project’s location, cultural practices, and people’s needs and priorities. The main evaluation question concerns the extent to which the project/intervention  is compatible with the needs and priorities of the people, its synergy with place and space, and the design and implementation adaptations that respond to place, space, and the future. The following themes can be addressed:

1. History of the place that informs the choice of projects
2. Information on the place and space that can facilitate or hinder the implementation, success, and outcome of the project
3. Community resources and assets that the projects/intervetion leverage on
4. How the project leverages on community indigenous science, resources and assets to inform project design and implementation
5. Project responsiveness to community context and needs
6. Community indicators of success
7. Community strategies for sustaining outcomes.

Time

Figure 4: A summary of the Time element

Time means looking back to the past, engaging in the present, and looking forward to the future. The success of project/intervention activities is measured against observed time patterns. Time focuses on understanding the rituals, beliefs, and symbolism associated with time and project activities, and thinking about how the past has informed the present and a vision for the future. The time of year, month, and day can inform routine activities, ultimately informing project outcomes and impact, which are assessed by comparing the past with the present and envisioning the future. Aligned with relationality and connectedness,  success is measured at the individual, family, community, and systems levels. Themes to be explored include:

1. Compare what was at the start with what is. Here, evaluators may assess progress against the project goals and objectives co-created with the stakeholders.   
2. Responsiveness to the changing environment: Measure changes, improvements, and adaptations made during implementation, along with the strategies and outcomes. Specific places, communities, and cultural practices may have required adaptations to the project. Local indigenous science may have been integrated into the design for innovative implementation and project outcomes.
3. Individual and family success stories using community methods
4. Measure systems-level impact, for example, community agency, collaborative partnership, local participation and ownership, social cohesion, and strengthening of local capacity.
5. Dreams for the future

This final aspect is well-suited to summative evaluation. It can be used for midterm reviews of projects/interventions or at the end of the project/intervention circle. It combines implementation measures across Environment, Place, and Space and assesses their impact on outcomes. It assesses the value added to the community by evaluating success at the individual, family, and community levels, environmental care, and prospects.

 What do you think of this framework? Would you like to try it? Let us know in the comments section. Alternatively, please email our Project Lead, Bagele Chilisa, at chilisab@ub.ac.bw.

I enjoyed looking after the family livestock initiated through goats, sheep etc while at the peak of my teenage years, I graduated to take care of the cattle. For some odd reasons, I resonated more with radio, which remains a reliable mode to consume and process information and, more so, prompts my not-so-stable mind to think. I also enjoyed browsing books and magazines which consequently shaped my worldview. Shockingly, their profound odour and my rural settings provoked an inclination to think beyond self. Since then, and up until now, I have been unable to ignore entrenched inequalities and poverty I recently developed the vocabulary to use words like underdevelopment, social injustices, power asymmetries and exclusions to refer to the imprisonment of my fellow villagers and African societies at large.

I am sure that you have been wondering about what necessitates the not-so-marketing-savvy and lengthy introduction. This is because of a belief that my orientation and understanding of the world and its issues are not inseparable and thus informed by my rural upbringing. So, as a founder of Tiyimele Consultants, I tag along with my consciousness breastfed through my granny’s teaching coupled with the context in which I was born and raised. It is therefore not surprising that our consulting firm has an unwavering commitment to African philosophies and approaches. For this reason, we are of the view that our company is an extension of my interconnectedness to my community, environment and that of my departed grandmom.

In conclusion, I and by default, Tiyimele Consultants are and continue to be awed by the resilience of the African people. Thus, our company advocates the exploration of Afrocentric worldviews and paradigms in reforming/tweaking if not rebooting policies/programmes/projects. Unlike in the past, this is a century for Africans to occupy their rightful positions at the dinner tables and begin to direct the development orchestra. We seek opportunities to partner with local and international organisations to advance this timeous reimagination phase for the betterment of Africa and its people.
We are convicted that indigenising development is now!!!

His Christian faith and values were central to his unwavering zeal to fight and defeat the apartheid system and all its stubborn aftermaths. On a daily basis and in line with his punishing schedule, he privately spent sufficient time in prayer and meditation. These ingredients strengthened his longstanding commitment fight against evil and social injustices such as human oppression, inequality, racism, economic exclusions etc. As a son of the African soil,  he demonstrated the symbiotic relationship between Christianity and African values and practices in contributing to global consciousness. This should be commended because often times, religion and politics are accountable for most of the conflicts witnessed globally. 

Coupled with his Christian beliefs, Ubuntu was one of the values exceptionally espoused and championed by the Arch. A plethora of definitions has been coined to widen the understanding of this concept. In defining Ubuntu, Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained that “ ‘a person is a person through other people. It is not “I think therefore I am”. It says rather: “I am human because I belong”. I participate, I share’ (Eliastam, 2015)[1]. In support of this sentiment, [2]Broodryk (2006) denotes that it is an ancient African worldview based on values of intense humanness, caring, sharing, respect, compassion, aimed at ensuring a happy and quality human community life in the spirit of family. Colliers (2008) explains that it is a combination of Ubu and ntu – the latter being a common root in most Sub-Saharan African languages. Ntu, is a suffix that simply means ‘human. Ubuntu encapsulates the concepts of humanity, humanness and even humane-ness and expresses respect and compassion to others (ibid.). Broodryk (2006) adds that Ubuntu inherently promotes collectivism, interconnectedness, and interdependence and individualism is frowned upon. A quote by Bishop Dandala as cited by [3]Nussbaum (2003. p.3)  succinctly provides this explanation:

“Ubuntu is not a concept easily distilled into a methodological procedure. It is rather a bedrock of a specific lifestyle or culture that seeks to honor human relationships as primary in any social, communal or corporate activity.” Ubuntu becomes a fountain from which actions and attitudes flow. Consciousness of what one can give and/or receive becomes equally important. The saying umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (a person is a person because of others) becomes sufficient and that interdependence is a reality for all. This is a statement that levels all people. It essentially states that no one can be self-sufficient, and that interdependence is a reality for all”

Against all temptations accompanied by fame, power and echelons bestowed upon his life, our Arch refused to succumb to personal or self-elevation. Although most of the African knowledge systems are yet to be widely shared and embraced elsewhere, the life of Archbishop Desmond Tutu is testament to few principles that could be summarised as follows.  Firstly, the solving of global crises requires leaders who are in touch with their inner beings. In a conversation between His Holiness Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu documented via a book titled “[4]The Book of Joy”, Dalai Lama said “From the moment of birth, every human being wants to discover happiness and avoid suffering. No difference in our culture, or our education or religion affect this. The ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status amount. Power and money fail to bring inner peace. Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness. We must look inside.” 

Secondly, there is an urgent need to recognise that solving global crises requires a shift from being hellbent on individualism and materialistic accumulation. The growing inequalities and poverty around us, are sufficient evidence illustrating that this approach has not worked and therefore should be done away with. Our societal and academic education systems should be refined to focus on growing leaders with hearts and minds. Instead of focusing on the self, his life urges us to pay attention and produce leaders and citizens with attributes such as compassion and kindness. 

In conclusion, the life of our Arch shows an urgent need for a paradigm shift entailing tapping into our inner beings or spirituality whichever applies to us. For far too long, our focus which gave rise to unequal societies and other socioeconomic barriers has been outward. At least there is consensus that this is unsustainable and drastic changes are inevitable. His life further epitomises that upholding African principles of Ubuntu (collectiveness and interconnectedness) is equal to the task of dealing with global crises. Indeed, his life attests that Africa and her people have a meaningful contribution towards reimagining and realising a free and fairer world that we jointly aspire for. Since the history of Timbuktu in the 12th century,  glancing through the well lived life of Arch is another gentle reminder of Africa’s exemplary and well-oiled principles availed world-over. The jury of whether the world will take up these lessons offered by this heroic continent remains out there. 

[1] Eliastam, J. (2015). Exploring ubuntu discourse in South Africa: Loss, liminality and hope. Veerbum et Ecclesia, 1-8

[2] Broodryk, J. (2006). The philosophy of ubuntu: some management guidelines. Management Today, 52-55

[3] Nussbaum, B. (2003). African culture and Ubuntu. Perspectives , 1-12.

[4] Lama, D. Tutu, D. & Abrahams, D. (2016). The Book of Joy, Listing Happiness in a Changing World, Penguin Random House, New York

In reflecting on these allegations against the health minister, I am going to give an analogy of personal experiences that I witnessed when communities came together to fight a common enemy and succeeded. I may not be that relatively old but I lived in a time when my village and neighbouring towns confronted a disturbing phenomenon—witchcraft. During those years, commotion  resulting from accusations and counter-accusations of witchcraft practices were thrown about as villagers noticed that most breadwinners who were fending for their families were dying in an unexplainable manner. The deceased who were working in the City of Gold were beacons of hope because they would send monthly essentials to their families, thus alleviating  poverty and hunger. The brunt of apartheid of marginalising rural communities created a situation in which elderly black parents rely on their children to cushion their financial needs, something referred to by some as black tax[1]. Therefore, deaths of breadwinners were a serious threat to the sustainability of their families. This reality prompted villagers to coordinate efforts to stop these deaths. Whether their deaths were indeed caused or not caused by witches from our villages, may not be clear, , but one cannot ignore the fact that there was active mobilisation for a solution to this big problem. 

I vividly recall how some village members accused of robbing the village of its breadwinners were singled out and then isolated from the rest of the community. Angry villagers employed services of traditional doctors and medicine (a common intervention available to villagers) to search for solutions. These traditional healers made all sorts of recommendations on how best to identify who were behind the witchcraft practices.  Unlike conventional pandemics, our village leaders  did not have available and conclusive data to influence decision-making. I recall how in one particular situation, there was isolation (or quarantining) of men and women allegedly responsible for practising witchcraft. These people were identified through what looked like persuasion and open debates. The harshness and wrath of society were dispensed over these individuals, and consequently, their family members did not escape. Equal to the accusation of killing our breadwinners, the very same medication of killing was dispensed by the community. Those who survived death threats were summoned to leave the villages and never set to return to a place they once called home.   

To date, it is still a mystery why the wrath of the community victimised those who looked darker, frail and a little bit older. In hindsight, my observation is that my very own community failed to deal with real problems confronting them and resorted to mob or crowd psychology.[2]They further ignored all available avenues and opted to entertain the peripheral issues. Some of the victims spoke Sepedi (our mother tongue) but used different dialects and therefore concluded that they are not fully part of us. Thus, our narrow definition of Pedi language, our geographical location, and our shared cultural practices became our rallying point, which propelled our fellow human beings to discriminate and espouse unjust practices. The effects of these tendencies were irretrievable because they led to the loss of precious lives and the disenchantment of others. As a reader, you may be wondering why I decided to give this account of what took place in my village many moons ago. How is this even linked to our apparent Honourable Minister of Health, Dr Zweli Mkhize, you may ask?

In recent times, the not so honourable Dr Zweli Mkhize has been in the news, accused of betraying the trust bestowed to him by the South African citizenry. Without belabouring the point about the publicly known accusations of what bluntly looks like acts of corruption, the Minister is alleged to have convened a meeting in his hometown to rally local support. Instead of utilising avenues available to him to answer questions posed by the media, parliament portfolio committee, and society at large, he opts to use regional politics and acts like a victim. More appalling, without offering any explanations, the Minister dilly dives and entertains  mob psychology. It is more apparent that the intention is to evade accountability. This is a pure attempt to use regional politics defined by the common language, geographical location and shared cultural practices to replace rationality. 

Like the evil acts led by my villagers, the Minister uses his Zulu ethnicity and the umbilical cord with the KwaZulu Natal province to shy away from explaining the absence of his moral compass in one of the most challenging moments the country has ever faced. In his remarks during the Annual Andrew Mlangeni lecture held on the 6 June 2021, Minister Ronald Lamola stated, “we cannot have one set of standards for what is right and wrong, good and bad, in the course of conducting the struggle and expect to have a completely different regime of ethical standards in the envisioned society”. However, he has failed to uphold the ethical standards that many young people in the country are expecting of him in this Youth month. He could probably use his political savviness to navigate the political terrain. But, he should note that society refuses to fall for his political ambition and obsession with the blue lights and all its perks. If this was not the case, why was it difficult for him to voluntarily resign?. If his initial intention was nothing else rather than serving the people of South Africa, why did he not listen to the heartbeat of his consciousness? This is evidence enough illustrating that his consciousness has been eroded and overtaken by personal greed and self-enrichment. It is a pity that he used his struggle credentials to advance his personal agenda. Indeed , one of the political wolves acting like a sheep

[1] ) Magubane (2016) refers to black tax as both the social and economic such as money, shelter, food and clothing that the middle class provides to their extended families (kinship networkhttps://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/59861/Magubane_Black_2017.pdf?sequence=1

[2] Crowd or riot psychology is explained by Bester (2015. p.3) as a crowd acting under solid emotional conditions that often lead to violence or illegal acts…”  or a riot as “…an instance of mob violence, with the destruction of property or looting, or violence against people” found at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283344500_Chapter_1_Crowd_Psychology.

 It is the global response, especially in the Global North to George Floyd’s brutal murder under the “black lives matter” campaign that [1]African scholars and practitioners ought to ponder on how they can contribute to transforming the evaluation fraternity to become more inclusive and accommodative of African centred approaches. This article argues that [2]African evaluators are not ‘breathing’, and the global pandemic is an opportune moment to screen check the symptoms of marginalisation, exclusion and lack of opportunities which the cited evaluators are subjected to in some cases in the fraternity. 

In discussing this article, another important aspect to note is that the word development has been on the African agenda since the advent of independence from colonial rule in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya from the late 1950s. but development in Africa remains elusive, as models of development have been formulated and most of them failed to produce the desired outcomes. Whether or not it is properly articulated and defined, development is poised to promote principles such as social justice, equality, representativity, inclusivity and diversity. In attaining these principles, there are even more important questions that Africans have to ponder on. For example, with decades of pursuing development programmes and interventions, why is it that real development in communities remains elusive? 

Going to basics also means that answers to questions such as “why development? “development for what and for whom” is required for African countries to realise better outcomes. At a macro level, governments, development partners, donors, public and private organisations including professionals employed in these institutions have been grappling with measuring their performance in development goals, albeit the levels of poverty continue rising. Monitoring and evaluation is an important approach and tool for measuring outcomes of development programmes, yet it remains a ‘nice to have’ for the most part.

The utility of research, monitoring and evaluation cannot be exaggerated especially when considering the critical role, it can play in screening ‘symptoms’ of malfunction in development programmes and interventions. It has been bestowed by various experts with the mandate to ascertain what works and does not work including why things do not work in development. Sometimes referred to as the evaluation praxis, it has both the competencies and capabilities to foretell answers to complex problems. As the continent responds to Covid19, through various measures, there remains a space for evaluation professionals to measure the effectiveness of programmes and identifying the most valuable and efficient use of resources dedicated to such interventions. As an illustration, the media fraternity in South Africa is playing a key role in exposing the misuse of resources and corruption related to the procurement of personal and protective equipment (PPEs) for reducing the spread of Covid19. 

As a side note, African countries observed the developments in the northern countries especially Italy and the USA and assumed that for a moment, they would be spared as the climate on the continent is much warmer than those countries. However, South Africa and to some extent its neighbours are registering marked increases in the spread of the virus than sometimes anticipated. The flu season of South Africa has always been one whereby the number of people experiencing colds and cases of flu is much higher than the warmer seasons. Added to this are diseases such as comorbidity with HIV infections and tuberculosis which are very rife in communities. So, the combination between Covid-19 and cold/dry air witnessed during the winter seasons end to result in the shortness of breath and subsequently high body temperatures. In response, every public building (in compliance with the government’s regulation) has stationed a screening table, where visitors are subjected to temperature checks and hand sanitising. Some go as far as recording personal information of visitors, usually, their contact details and the temperature prior entering their offices Measuring individual temperatures is perceived to be an early warning system and is further purported to be helpful should there be a need for tracing a visitor who would have tested Covid19 positive at some point

As a reader of this article, you may be pondering on the gist of narrating this background and how it links to evaluation. Let me try to answer, but please do not hold me to it. Let me be blunt, the intention of this article is not to provide answers but to ventilate some of my exasperation with the current status quo. As a black professional located in South Africa, I have been also been preoccupied with more questions as opposed to answers. Since evaluation involves measurement and making a judgement, what is the temperature of this nascent but growing profession in the era of Covid-19?  Using the “I cannot breathe” analogy from George Floyd’s last words, is evaluation in South Africa or across the continent breathing? 

In recent times, transformative evaluation has gained traction, but the question of whether or not this field if transformed remains out there. Frantz Fanon words in his book published over some decades ago translated into English by [3]Philcox (2004) remains prophetic. Fanon remarked that colonisation promoted race theory and thrived on racial categorisation which resulted in structural and systematic inequalities and disparities (economic, education and human dignity) at the peril of the black populace. 

It is undeniable that for centuries the ‘knee’ of colonisation has been affected upon black people. This effectively means that their collective breathing patterns have always been under siege purely based on their blackness. Thus, their body temperatures are undoubtedly remaining higher. In conclusion, it is not surprising that Black researchers/evaluators who have something to contribute and are already contributing to shaping the sector continue to encounter systematic exclusions. More concerning, there seems to be consented ignorance and implicit acceptance of this racially bias system which thrives at the exclusion of others. We all agree that this exclusion is unfair and unjust, but the question of why this continues remains unanswered. This article, therefore, calls for the immediacy in the implementation of a tangible (moves beyond [4]talking left and walking right) transformational agenda in the field of evaluation. This urgent agenda should strive to ensure that the voices, lenses, nuances and ideologies of black researchers/evaluators are firstly recognised, respected and subsequently given space to influence the practice.  

Mokgophana Ramasobana is an Independent M&E Expert and a South African Monitoring and Evaluation (SAMEA) board member. He writes this article in his personal capacity 

[1] Black people of African descent, no matter where they are located in the world including all evaluators based in Africa no matter their race, or country of origin who are proponents of Afrocentric approaches and methodologies

[2] People of African descent located in Africa who were historically (politically and culturally) marginalised

[3] Richard Pilcox (2004), The Wretched of the Earth rovel Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

[4] This is an expression that was used by Patrick Bond’s book written in 2006 to illustrate the policy contradictions between President Thabo Mbeki’s government in addressing international and local constituents. ‘Thus the slogan “talking left but acting right was coined” Accessible at http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/BondTalkLeftWalkRight2ndedn.pdf

Read the full article here.