New AfrEA board elected

Outgoing President Dr. Florence Etta
congratulates newly elected Nermin Waly  

Late last night at its meeting on the sidelines of the conference, AfrEA elected a new Board of nine. Nermin Waly was elected new President to succeed Dr Florence Etta. Adiza Quando was elected Secretary and Issa Adam Treasurer.

Other members elected to the Board comprise Boureima Goudo, Serge Eric Yakeu, Ahmed Bencheikh, Jennifer Mutua, Adeline Sibanda and Jennifer Bisgard.

Hello, Welcome, Goodbye

Volunteers at the 6th AfrEA conference

With these smiles, volunteers who have been performing various roles as guides and assistants at the conference, have welcomed participants and guests.

The smiles have been sustained throughout the five days of the conference and as it closes today, the same smiles will be there to say goodbye, safe travel and meet you again.

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."

M&E and the Gender question

Women working in a cocoa farm

Gender in equality still persists in much of the world. In poor and middle income countries, females are more likely to be poor than males while primary and secondary school enrollment is lower for girls than boys.

In developing countries, women are more likely to work as unpaid labourers than men. Frequently, women have less control over assets and decision making than men. This year's World Development Report “Gender Equality and Development” argues that greater gender equality can enhance productivity, improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions more representative.

What is the role of M&E in delivering gender equality and social inclusion? A robust, effective monitoring and Evaluation system will deliver prudent management and accountability practices. In turn, these practices will lead to effective and efficient delivery of services to the benefit of all people.  The use of M&E tools to provide reliable information on which government can base its decision making is fundamental to good governance.

Without effective M&E how will we have evidence to support claims regarding gender equality? How can we hold decision makers to account for the investment decisions they make on our behalf ? Some of the challenges to implementing programmes and policies successfully relate to M&E. There is often a lack of reliable data to base these policies on. This leads to an incomplete understanding of the exact nature of what is being addressed.

This makes planning the policy difficult. Frequently, there is no Monitoring and Evaluation framework so it is not possible to understand what has worked, where and why. Resources to implement the policy and to monitor its impact are also inadequate.

One major obstacle that has consistently hampered progress towards gender equality and social inclusion is the inability to mainstream these issues in developmental activities and monitor progress over time at the national, regional and district levels. This can be addressed by integrating gender into M&E frameworks as women and men have different needs and face diverse constraints due to different social and economic roles.

Gender sensitive M&E requires that gender becomes an integral part of monitoring, evaluation and review exercises. Gender needs to be considered in the design of development processes. Fundamental to the achievement of gender equality is the use of sex-disaggregated data as well as gender analysis at all stages of programme and project life-cycles, in order to identify and address the implications of gender is sues through appropriate gender sensitive interventions. Data is critical.

More support is needed to improve the availability of gender disaggregated data and to foster more systematic evaluation of mechanisms to improve women’s access to markets, services and justice. This means that programmes and projects should ensure that there are gender sensitive indicators and baseline information/data is systematically monitored.

Data and its’ analysis should feed management decisions for political action, social and economic considerations. A partnership approach is needed to address gender equality. It should extend beyond government and development agencies to include the private sector, Civil Society Organisations and academic institutions in developing and rich countries.

Given the fact that the challenges are multifaceted, gender equality will only be achieved if there are concerted, consistent and sustainable efforts by all.

When volunteers make the world go around

Omoyemi Timson

Perhaps left to Omoyemi Timson alone, she will always pick the current 20 volunteers that she’s been working with at the Accra AfrEA conference for all other tasks. “These volunteers have performed beyond my expectation,” she told Reportage during her coffee break last Thursday. “They have been extremely pro-active and I have received a lot of commendation on their behalf from participants.

As conference Administrative and Research Assistant, Yemi has been directly responsible for ensuring that volunteers play their roles well to guide participants “to get what they want or to tell them how to do

without them.” She attributed the successful performance of her volunteers first to their passion for being hospitable and second, to the daily briefing and de-briefings that

they receive.

On the first day, she said, they were a few hiccups here and there but by the mid-morning break, everyone had found their rhythm and things were cruising smoothly. Having been a volunteer herself at a number of conferences, Yemi places considerable premium on briefing at which volunteers are encouraged to indicate and migrate towards their natural leanings. “So by the end of our last meeting, we knew who was best at doing what and in no time we were good to go,” she said. She was particularly impressed with the manner in which each volunteer was willing to step in for another whenever any of them was not available.

With regard to time management, Yemi said that they fared well. “Of course, there were a few times that a volunteer was late because of one thing or another but on each of these occasions, other volunteers covered for them admirably.

Yemi was also happy about the good relationships the volunteers have built among themselves. “We are like one big family and whenever work was over, we chat and laugh together. I’m glad everything has come this well.