Webinar: Using Evidence in Policy and Practice – Lessons from Africa

On 7 May 2020, UNICEF’s Evaluation Office, EVALSDGs and CLEAR-AA hosted a webinar on “Using Evidence in Policy and Practice – Lessons from Africa”. This webinar was based on the book “Using Evidence in Policy and Practice: Lessons from Africa”.

This book asks how governments in Africa can use evidence to improve their policies and programmes, and ultimately, to achieve positive change for their citizens. Looking at different evidence sources across a range of contexts, the book brings policy makers and researchers together to uncover what does and doesn’t work and why. This webinar focused on Chapter 5, a case study on the use of evaluation evidence by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in South Africa, a department which has been a pioneer of using evaluations and other evidence. The webinar drew out the lessons for evidence use emerging from this example of country-driven evaluation. Key speakers were Carol Nuga Deliwe, Chief Director, DBE, with Mine Pabari and Ian Goldman, the co-editors of the book (This webinar is part of a series aimed at sharing findings and lessons from the book which will be published by Routledge in July 2020).

About the speakers

Professor Ian Goldman
Advisor on Evaluation and Evidence Systems, CLEAR Anglophone Africa

Ian has worked for 40 years in 20 countries on issues of rural development, decentralization, sustainable livelihoods approaches, community-driven development, evidence-based policy-making and evaluation. From 2011 to 2018 he was the Head of Evaluation and Research and later Deputy Director General in South Africa’s Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME). Ian has been a Commissioner of 3ie since 2012 and was one of the founders of the Twende Mbele partnership of African governments on M&E. In July 2018 he joined CLEAR Anglophone Africa as an Advisor on evaluation and evidence systems. Ian is an Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town and a Visiting Professor at the University of Reading in the UK.

Mine Pabari
Visiting Research Fellow, CLEAR Anglophone Africa

Mine has over 20 years’ experience in the natural resource management and sustainable development as an evaluator as well as programme manager and implementer. From 2001 to 2004, Mine was responsible for monitoring and evaluation processes across a large scale regional environmental programme covering 12 countries in eastern Africa. Thereafter, from 2005 to 2009, she provided technical advisory services to environmental and agricultural programmes in eastern and southern Africa. This included carrying out evaluations, facilitating self-appraisals and internal evaluations as well as training and supporting the development and implementation of monitoring systems. From 2009 to 2017, Mine was a deputy director, heading up the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) regional programme in eastern and southern Africa. Mine is currently a visiting research fellow with CLEAR Anglophone Africa and the managing partner of Athari Advisory.

Carol Nuga Deliwe
Chief Director, Department of Basic Education in South Africa

Carol is the Chief Director responsible for Sector Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Research at the Department of Basic Education, with extensive experience in policy support, focused on data and information analysis, research coordination, monitoring, reporting and evaluation.