Pretoria – The Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation is expecting to conduct 200 evaluations a year across government in five years’ time.
“I can confirm that from cabinet’s point of view, we are very committed to using monitoring and evaluation information to improve our performance,” Deputy Minister of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Buti Manamela said.
Speaking on Wednesday at the 5th Biennial South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA) conference, he said his department is busy developing departmental evaluation plans.
The conference, held under the theme: “Using evaluations to improve people’s lives”, was a partnership between the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, the Public Service Commission and SAMEA.
“Of course evaluation is about evidence – using rigorous evidence so that we understand how programmes and policies are working, and how they can be strengthened,” Deputy Minister of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Buti Manamela said.
He said evaluation was also about accountability which was being done in the National Assembly.
“Government is very committed to using monitoring and evaluation … hence the creation of the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, its focus on the National Development Plan and the priority outcomes,” Deputy Minister Manamela said.
He encouraged Africa to find its own approaches for monitoring and evaluation.
“While we can learn from others we must adapt and apply to our own context, as has happened with the national evaluation system, where we drew from the experience of Mexico and Colombia.
“We need to bring in new people, and build the capacity of existing evaluators,” he said.
He added that there was a need for a few strong evaluation companies to partner and mentor emerging evaluators as well as for universities and science councils to see evaluation as an important discipline and train their staff not just to do research, but evaluation. –SAnews.gov.za
