Twende Mbele

1. Twende Mbele Peer-learning for improved government performance and accountability to citizens Timothy Lubanga, Commissioner, M&E, Uganda Presented at the National Evaluation Capacities (NEC) Conference, 16-20 October 2017, Istanbul, Turkey www.twendembele.org @TwendeMnE

2. Background • African M&E workshop with 7 countries in March 2012 – as result Uganda, Benin and SA started working together on national evaluation systems • Attended each others evaluation weeks • Participated in training • Exchanged standards, competences, guidelines etc • Joint session at last Afrea on national eval systems • Encouraged Benin to join 3ie • DFID agreed to fund going forward, also partnering with CLEAR and AfDB reflecting their regional roles • Twende Mbele African M&E Partnership started January 2016, with full funding from 1 September 2016.

3. Programme Overview • 3 core countries (SA, Uganda, Benin plus 2 regional players CLEAR AA and IDEV at the AfDB), expanding to include others • These partners are the Management Committee, CLEAR AA hosts the secretariat, and each country has a Country Coordinator • DFID funding began in 2015- 2019 • Share experience and support capacity development activities with 10-15 countries • Not funding project – catalysing learning and sharing and collaboration on M&E across Africa – adding value to what you are doing or want to do • Country ownership is key principal

5. Importance of Twende Mbele • Country governments coming together to lead on development of national M&E systems • Supported by key regional support organisations, CLEAR AA and AfDB • Builds on the pioneering work being done by these partners around national evaluation systems • What are some of the features of these countries?

6. Current activities • Adaptation of Management Performance Assessment Tool in Uganda and Benin • Training parliamentarians in M&E Oversight in Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania & Benin • Training of Trainers • Gender Responsive of NES • Performance M&E Culture baseline • Peer-review of each others evaluations • Adaptation of course on Evidence-based Policy-making • National Evaluation Policy workshop at SAMEA conference

7. The national evaluation systems

8. Analytical framework of NESs

9. Policy

10. Organisation

11. Participation by stakeholders

12. Focus on use

13. Lessons on peer-learning models • Ownership is key – activities must be run in line with country-led demand • Time to collaborate requires longer timelines • Getting people to think and share reflectively required structured time and processes • More expensive model than others • Need to spread learning beyond one or two champions; this requires running activities in each country and bringing high-level champions from other countries to help build support.

14. Lessons • Importance of central unit in Presidency or Office of Prime Minister mandate to lead evaluation system. They have authority to take system forward. Ensures significant political will to make M&E/evaluation system work, with support from political as well as technical champions • Having eval policy in advance (as SA did, but Uganda and Benin didn’t) not necessary although there needs to be some definition of how the system will work, how it will provide for impartiality etc, when you start. • With severe resource constraints in Africa, all 3 countries strategic in selecting limited numbers of priority evaluations, using donor resources where needed, but driving the agenda themselves. Important if evaluation to become part of countries’ strategic agendas, not just imposed by donors.

15. Lessons (2) • All 3 countries started with national level evaluations focusing on national depts. However, systems extending in SA to provincial levels and to departments, but not yet local government, while Benin is keen to extend to local government levels.

16. Challenges • Each country has had a stronger focus on monitoring than evaluation, with some lack of acceptance of / resistance to evaluation. Evaluation often seen as an accountability tool rather than for learning; • Funding – with evaluation seen as secondary to programme implementation and monitoring and so challenges to liberate funds for evaluation; • Capacity of evaluators and government staff – hence key focus of Twende Mbele • Ensuring that evaluations are followed-up and recommendations implemented. Central agencies play big role in ensuring evaluations implemented successfully. However, responsibility shifts to implementing deptsduring implementation phase. All three countries are seeking some way to hold these departments to account for implementing the recommendations

17. Conclusions • Countries such as Chile and Colombia had national evaluation systems since 1990s. Since the 2010s Benin, Uganda and SA undertaken significant efforts to mainstream evaluations in work of government, in very differing political situations and with differing resource constraints. • Systems emerging with wide variety of components – policies, plans, standards, governance structures etc, and which involve a wide range of stakeholders in the evaluation ecosystem. • In terms of use there is evidence of a significant portion of evaluations having recommendations implemented and we are beginning to see examples of integration with the budget process. • Peer learning approach has enhanced these systems, and resources made available through Twende Mbele programme provide an opportunity to deepen this and to expand evaluation to other countries in Africa.