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This practice brief highlights the capacity development efforts by stakeholders in the parliamentary space through Twende Mbele and the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR-AA) peer learning programme. It looks at some of the challenges facing parliamentarians – both generators and users of evidence, and the benefits of taking part in the peer learning programme where the with the help of capacity development partners as facilitators, meet and share best practices.

Over the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of developing countries that either have, or are in the process of developing, a national evaluation policy and/or system (NEPS), (Bamberger et 2014). While acknowledging that there is growing interest and increase in the number of governments adopting the concept of evaluation and creating national evaluation policies (NEPS) and national evaluation systems (NES), in most cases these NEPs and NES are not gender responsive nor do they focus on social equity. Marco Segone et al, note that ‘this suggests that for many countries gender equality is not a priority or is not considered relevant to national development policies and programmes addressed by the NEPs’. However, the moral imperative of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development of ‘no one left behind’ which intones social and gender equity is binding on all countries that have signed this latest global development compact containing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. One of these -Goal #5 is entirely dedicated to transforming our world by making gender equality the norm by 2030.

The objective of the survey was to establish baseline information on the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) culture that exists within the public sector by identifying the current conditions against which future changes in the country’s National Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation System and culture could be tracked to increase the adaptation of monitoring and evaluation and performance management as part of public sector reform. The working hypothesis of the survey was that an M&E culture that looks positively at change, adaptation and learning leads to improved and operational performance systems. To test this hypothesis, the survey sought to answer four questions, namely: Is there an endogenous demand for M&E in the public sector? Is there an adequate supply of M&E evidence to meet demand? What are the barriers to the use and supply of M&E evidence in the public sector? What is the dominant performance M&E culture in the Kenyan Public Sector?

This brief argues that reforms implemented in these countries have not yielded optimal results because they have not been contextualised to fit local country settings. Using the PDIA model, the study analysed the adaptation process of a specific institutional reform intervention in South Africa and Uganda – MPAT – to further explore the conditions of adaptation and test this proposition.

To encourage learning across the continent, Twende Mbele organized a one-day lessons-learned event. This event took place in parallel with the Ghanaian “Results Fair”, organized by the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation, in Accra. This report highlights the lessons learned from this event.