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To truly “build a well-governed country”, as indicated in the Sustainable Development and Inclusive Growth Strategy (SDDCI) Niger 2035 and its first five-year version, which is the Economic and Social Development Plan (PDES 2017-2021), Niger must have reference frameworks which will ensure regular measurement of the performance of the implementation of development policies, strategies, programs and projects. This constitutes a major challenge for the country, especially in the context of implementing the program approach, according to the principle of Results-Based Management.

A Twende Mbele delegation undertook a scoping visit to Ghana. The purpose of the visit was to determine how best Twende Mbele could partner with Ghana on M&E, based on their M&E capacity. Over two days, the delegation met with key M&E drivers in the public sector to gauge the level of priority given to M&E in Ghana. Two issues pose a great challenge to the strengthening of the M&E system in Ghana, firstly is the absence of a national evaluation policy and secondly is the lack of capacity around M&E. The changes in governments and realignment of priorities is to blame for the its absence. And, the lack of capacity is a pressing issue as it has a direct impact on the day to day work of M&E duties. And this is where Twende Mbele would like to partner with Ghana, in the strengthening of capacity around evaluations. Ghana has, however, taken it upon itself to strengthen its M&E capacity through the establishment of two new ministries: The Ministry of Planning, and the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation.

A Twende Mbele Team, comprising of the Acting Commissioner of Monitoring and Evaluation- Uganda’s Office of the Prime Minister, the Uganda Programme Coordinator for Twende Mbele and The Deputy Director General for Research and Evaluation of South Africa’s Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), met with key officials from the Kenyan Government, members of Evaluation Society of Kenya and representatives of other key non state actors. In Kenya, the core work for monitoring and evaluation is delivered using the National Monitoring and Evaluation System (NIMES) coordinated by the Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate (MED) domiciled in the Ministry of Devolution and Planning. Key gaps were noted in the M&E policy and It is therefore important that M&E systems and practices in Kenya be strengthened through the Twende Mbele programme by peer learning across the continent.

The Twende Mbele Program scoping mission in Niger was conducted under favourable conditions and provided a synoptic view of the country’s monitoring and evaluations system. It has yielded satisfactory results as relates to the term of reference, and it offers interesting prospects for the future of an evaluation system in Niger. Authorities and representatives of government agencies were helpful and cooperative, and are identified as actors in the development chain. The Twende Mbele Program Team observed an awareness of M&E issues and the need to create an effective system in Niger. It was also observed that, in addition to a general awareness, there is strong political commitment at the highest level of government. Two major areas of cooperation were noted by the team and will be submitted to the Twende Mbele management committee, these consist of: capacity building for M&E actors and support for the creation of an effective M&E system, but more importantly the institutionalization of public policy evaluation in Niger.

During 2017 and early 2018, Twende Mbele commissioned separate diagnostic studies on the supply and demand of evaluators in Uganda, Benin and South Africa. While the studies were separate, they had similar terms of reference. The purpose of the diagnostic studies was to provide a demand-and-supply profile of evaluators in these three countries. And the aim on the other hand, was to ascertain whether supply is, and will be in the future, sufficient to meet demand, and what should be done to grow local supply. In all three countries, one of the main barriers to entry was found to be weaknesses with government capacity to formulate, procure and manage evaluations. Nevertheless, in all three countries the diagnostic was able to produce a qualitative assessment of the ability of supply to meet demand, both currently and in the future.