SAMEA News Update - January 2009

Last year was an exciting year for SAMEA and monitoring and evaluation in general. Our focused activities were well attended and the interest in M&E continued to grow. As we prepare for the challenges of 2009, we channel our collective positive energies towards all efforts that will help resolve debilitating conflicts locally, on our continent and internationally. 2009 is also an election year in our country and the need for proper monitoring and evaluation systems will be crucial. Should SAMEA as a collective get involved? Should SAMEA debate the issues related to M&E in elections? Members can guide us on this. The SAMEA 2009 Evaluation conference is taking shape. Most keynote speakers, including Profs. Jennifer Greene, Johann Mouton and Adam Habib have been confirmed. The first call for papers and training has gone out and we hope to secure adequate sponsorship that will allow us to subsidise some people's participation in the conference. While we value the contributions of the keynote speakers, we want to make sure that this conference is centrally about M&E practitioners/ educators sharing their work and experiences. Delegates are encouraged to enrol for and participate in the various high calibre training workshops that will be on offer. Check the conference link for more details. Our new website has been designed to provide easier access to members as well as non-members and will be launched soon. We hope to add more interactive features that will allow members to communicate with each other on a regular basis, to get access to good up-to-date resources, and ultimately to develop a dynamic community of M&E practitioners. Non-members should be able to find and contact appropriate expertise using the website or our listserv. Please use the website, share with others and provide us with feedback about your use of this site. Also encourage other M&E practitioners to join SAMEA. We expect a large South African contingent to attend the joint NONIE/3ie/AfrEA 'Impact Evaluation' conference in Egypt during March/April this year. This World Bank supported initiative will attract people internationally with multiple perspectives on evaluation and indeed impact evaluation. Impact Evaluation will be discussed and debated by those who promote, among others, results-based evaluation, outcomes-based evaluation, outcomes mapping, and working in diverse fields such as education, economics, development, health and politics. This should be an exciting conference. Our initiative around accreditation for M&E courses and training has been influenced by various other developments such as the re-conceptualisation of accreditation at SAQA and the Department of Labour. The working group will continue to develop appropriate standards and principles that should inform whatever new criteria may emerge. Members are encouraged to participate in this process. Several of our members also belong to IDEAS (International Development Evaluation Association) who will have their second 'Global Assembly' during 18 to 20 March 2009 at the Birchwood Lodge in Johannesburg. SAMEA has been asked to participate in this forum and we will report back on resolutions taken at this gathering. We currently have just over 300 paid up members and our target is to increase this number to 500. Please join SAMEA before the conference in August 2009. We look forward to your participation in all the events we plan to have during this year. We wish you a productive and prosperous new year and invite you to be part of a critical mass that will build and strengthen monitoring and evaluation expertise in South Africa and Southern Africa. Mark Abrahams (Chairperson)