Vice Prez challenges African evaluators

Dr Etta confers with Vice President Mahama

The Vice President of Ghana Mr John Dramani Mahama has challenged African evaluators to develop a unique valuation system in Africa that addresses the peculiar needs of the continent. “The methods, tools and orientation for conducting evaluations have been oriented more towards norms and standards determined by outsiders rather than those emerging from Africa-rooted evaluative thinking and practice”.

The Vice President was speaking at the official opening ceremony of the 6^th AfrEA Conference in Accra yesterday.

He said that “the emergence of more democratic institutions, notably an increase in Parliaments; the deepening of civil  society organisations and NGOs and the increased demand for accountability of governments  and regional institutions, and the very emergence of the African Evaluation Association present an opportunity for developing and strengthening a unique evaluation for Africa”. Earlier in an address to welcome participants and invited guests to the opening ceremony the President of AfrEA, Dr Florence Etta drew attention to the theme of the conference – Rights and Responsibility in Development Evaluation.

Dr Etta said that the theme of the conference was an attempt to place humans at the heart and centre of development practice and in particular, development evaluation.

“It is our hope”, she said, “that in asking and attempting to answer the question of rights and responsibility of the few who act in the name of development on behalf of the many who are expected to benefit from development, we might begin a journey of claiming the true future of development”.

The 6^th AfrEA Conference began last Monday January 9, 2012 with pre-conference workshops and will end on Friday, January 13.