SAMEA, in partnership with the Public Service Commission (PSC), GTZ and DFID, hosted a highly successful conference at the end of March 2007. More than 400 people from South Africa and other countries attended the conference. Participants (SAMEA members as well as non-SAMEA members) expressed their appreciation for the high calibre of the key-note speakers who stimulated discussions, the variety of panel discussions that introduced different ways of thinking about monitoring and evaluation and, the large number of interesting and thought-provoking paper presentations that did wonders for the objective of building a strong, critical mass of M&E practitioners in South Africa. Conference attendees were also exposed to various M&E resources (local) that were on display throughout the conference. A complete conference report will be on the website and in print form shortly.

The pre-conference training sessions were all booked as more than 300 people grabbed the opportunity to be exposed to high quality training offered by respected local and international facilitators. Word of their experiences has obviously spread because there is a persistent and insistent call for these courses to be repeated – watch this space!

NEW BOARD MEMBERS – NEW OFFICIALS

The inaugural SAMEA conference also marked our first AGM and the election results were announced during the SAMEA business meeting session. The new Board is embodied by the following members: Angela Bester; Benita Van Wyk; Indran Naidoo; Marlene Roefs; Kevin Kelly; Mark Abrahams; Fanie Cloete; Donna Podems; Sarah Howie; Sefiso Khumalo; Octavia Mkhabela.  The last five are new Board members starting their term. At a subsequent Board meeting, the following officials were elected:

Chairperson – Mark Abrahams;

Deputy-Chairperson – Indran Naidoo; and

Treasurer – Benita Van Wyk.

The other Board members will assume responsibilities for portfolios that will emerge from the Board’s first strategic planning session. Members are welcome to forward suggestions of specific portfolios and specific focus areas they wish SAMEA to have. Suggestions can be posted via SAMEATALK or directly to info@samea.org.za.

CHAPTERS AND INTEREST GROUPS

During the conference, space (and time) was created for interest groups to meet. Among these groups were ‘Accreditation issues', ‘Poverty reduction’, 'HIV/AIDS', 'Government sector', 'Education related' as well as 'Geographic location'.  We are pleased to note that the Gauteng chapter is going strong and that they have elected officials to drive their initiatives as a potential ‘substructure’ of SAMEA. Rumour has it that the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape will soon follow. There is considerable interest in the Accreditation Group and SAQA has ‘informally’ agreed to consider supporting this specific initiative.

The Board will also consider actively supporting the establishment and development of interest groups as these initiatives provide opportunity for SAMEA members to interact and collaborate around common interests or in specific geographic locations.

A MONITORING AND EVALUATION JOURNAL?

The creation of a journal for M&E was a strong recommendation from the membership who attended the conference. The AfrEA (African Evaluation Association) delegates were particularly interested in this possibility. Although early days yet, it can be reported that discussions are underway about how to make this a reality.

SAMEATALK

SAMEA’s listserve, SAMEAtalk has over 160 members. The listserve provides a platform for information sharing through questions and answers being posted by evaluation practitioners, presentation of opportunities and announcements of conferences, seminars, and training.

MEMBERSHIP

We currently have over 200 members and the same number of people is in the process of registering currently.