Our Success, Our Challenges

The AfrEA of 2012 has a stable, well managed Secretariat housed in a publicinstitution of repute and should be able to maintain the functions and running of the administration business of AfrEA,” says Dr Florence Etta, President of the African Evaluation Association. This was contained in her Stewardship Report for the period 2009 -2012 when she held the office.

Describing funding as the tool that remains a precarious challenge for the Association, Dr Etta, suggests generating project ideas and activities that would ensure sustainability. Having initiated a capacity project herself, it is her hope that the conversations on it will continue even after a new Board sets in. 

Dr Etta recounts establishing the Board Task Team structure as one of the major achievements of the first year of her tenure. This is based on eight Task Teams headed by one Board member supported by another in a role of co-responsibility so that all members had a direct line of work and reporting.

Two other achievements chalked in the first year are the completion and submission of two project proposals namely Institutional Strengthening & Organizational Development supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, and Communicating Change & Development supported by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation.

AfrEA activities and the Board’s management was strengthened, deepened and expanded in the second year with a number of successes chalked including the drafting of the 5-year AfrEA Strategic Plan as well as the establishing the AfrEA Secretariat – a physical home for the Association – at the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies.

Much of the third year, says Dr Etta, “was spent planning for, as well as raising awareness and funding for the 2012 conference.” In that time also, the final draft of the 5-year Strategic Plan 2010 – 2015 and the launch of the 6th AfrEA Conference website was some of the milestones achieved. 

It is her hope that the next Board term will be “a balance of experience and dedication,” and that its members “must have time to devote to building and strengthening the Association, not the ‘One-person Staff ’ like I did, spending up to 70% of my private time on AfrEA business."