SAMEA UPDATE: SAMEA UPDATE: SAMEA UPDATE – June 2008
As part of the quest for good governance mechanisms across sectors, the development of organisational monitoring and evaluation systems and mechanisms has boomed. Exemplar is the South African government that is introducing a Government-Wide Monitoring and Evaluation System and establishes monitoring and evaluation units across the country. However also in the civil and privates sectors we find many organisations that have developed policies, systems and structures for M&E within their organisations.
In response to these developments, SAMEA organised a seminar series in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Gauteng on the institutionalisation of M&E. This seems indeed to be a topical issue and the events in Midrand, Cape Town and East London drew interested individuals from government, private organisations, academics and researchers. The facilitator, Prof Gert Van der Westhuizen has finalised a monograph summarising the presentation as well as the comments made during the seminars. This will be posted on the website shortly.
Another seminar on Impact Evaluation facilitated by Howard White, the CEO of 3ie, drew fantastic responses, both in terms of the number of people that attended the event in Pretoria and the quality of the interaction during the presentation. We were provided with the historical context of the latest emphasis on impact evaluation and a particular understanding of the challenges related to doing impact evaluations. Dr White welcomed organisations and institutions to join this ‘international movement’ and announced several opportunities for the funding of impact evaluations. The presentation appears on our website and members are welcome to follow up on these opportunities. He also announced the joint conference with AfrEA, (African Evaluation Association) and NONIE on Impact Evaluation during May 2009 in Egypt. Details can be found on the website. This announcement has affected the date of our own conference in 2009.
A completely independent initiative occurred during May in Limpopo. An Evaluation “Learning Network” meeting was arranged and attended by twenty-two participants. The majority of the participants came from the Department of Public Works, one from the Office of the Premier, one from the University of Limpopo as well as the Gauteng Chapter Chairperson David Molapo. SAMEA Board Member Sefiso Khumalo, made a presentation on behalf of SAMEA. This was well-received and several of the participants joined SAMEA immediately. If you are aware of similar initiatives in other provinces, please inform Nomvuzo Mamabolo at info@samea.org.za.
We are also proud to share that one of SAMEA’s Board members, Indran Naidoo has been contracted to teach on this year’s IPDET (International Program for Development Evaluation Training) programme in Ottawa, Canada. This annual programme is attended by development workers from across the world. Indran is also a past participant of this world-renowned training programme. His experiences will be shared with SAMEA.
AGM
The 2008 Annual General Meeting followed immediately after the Howard White seminar on 12 June. The annual report and financial report were presented by the chairperson and treasurer respectively. These reports are now available on the website. The need to build an independent and sustainable SAMEA was emphasised. A full-time SAMEA organiser with office space, the M&E journal and benefits for SAMEA members were some of the issues discussed. We want to thank those who made themselves available to be elected to the Board and particularly ALL the members who voted. The three nominees who received the most votes were announced, they are:
- Christel Jacob
- Candice Morkel
- David Molapo.
Congratulations to these individuals. Candice is based in the Eastern Cape and Christel and David are based in Pretoria.
2009 Conference
The next SAMEA conference will now receive our urgent attention and initial thoughts are that the conference should be held during August 2009 because of the May conference in Egypt and other conferences happening during that period. We will need extra hands in organising and holding the conference and would like to invite our SAMEA members to help us in this big event. If you are interested in joining the conference organising committee, please forward your details to Nomvuzo at info@samea.org.za. Thank you those that have already volunteered their time in this regard.
SAMEA website
Please note that the SAMEA website is due to be revamped soon. We want to make the website more attractive, easy to engage with and have more features that will improve sharing and communicating. Watch this space!
SAMEA membership
Members are reminded once again that they have to send through proof of payment when they pay their membership fees, otherwise the payment cannot be allocated to the right member. This will result in your membership not being activated or your payments being updated. If you have queries about your membership status or whether your payment has been accurately recorded, please contact Nomvuzo Mamabolo at info@samea.org.za