Dear current and potential SAMEA members
Since the last Update in January this year, a number of exciting events and new developments have taken place in SAMEA, including the Andy Rowe Seminar Series that was held in various venues across the country. More opportunities for networking and building the association are lined up for SAMEA for the second half of 2010, and we hope that many of you will support these events and functions, which are meant to stimulate, inspire and enthuse you, our members and potential members.
Andy Rowe Seminar Series: 15-19 February 2010
SAMEA, in collaboration with a number of key partners presented a rare and exciting opportunity for evaluators and other interested individuals to engage with the internationally recognized Evaluation Specialist and Economist, Dr. Andy Rowe. The Seminar Series, based on the theme “Evaluation in Conservation and Environmental Settings”, was presented in East London, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Stellenbosch, in collaboration with Universities, the Public Service Commission, and the Eastern Cape Office of the Premier. A number of professional networking sessions were held in some of the provinces, which was made possible by the sponsorship from organisations such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the Eastern Cape.
Dr. Rowe is an economist and evaluation specialist who has successfully worked in a wide range of sectors promoting results focused approaches to M&E. He works with organizations to improve the approach and performance of their programs. These include focused evaluation studies; the design and implementation of evaluation systems; or working closely with organizations to adaptively manage their programs.
The Andy Rowe Seminar Series comprised 6 seminars in 3 centers in the country. About 70 attended in East London, 45 in Pretoria, 40 in the P&DM/Wits Business School, 30 in each of the Wits School of Education and Emthonjeni Center and Stellenbosch University. With between 230 and 240 attendees, the collaboration between SAMEA and the PSC to arrange the seminar series was successful. The purpose of the seminars was to promote, and raise the profile of, evaluation in institutions nationally, as well as raise the pressing issue of ‘evaluation and use’ is the series. The Seminars afforded Andy an opportunity to share his thinking on use from evaluation assignments he has recently been working on, in conservation and environmental settings particularly. SAMEA and the PSC through such seminars, aim explicitly to promote and raise the level of debate about evaluation in institutions having an interest in evaluation, and we hope that these will continue going forward.
The seminar in Pretoria, facilitated by the PSC and SAMEA, attracted participants from government, academia, civil society, business, science councils, and the like. The topic “Evaluation use and its implications for evaluation in SA” highlighted the importance of involving communities and the utilization of the evaluation results to enhance development. It engendered robust discussion on community involvement in evaluation and utilization of the results to enhance development, which showed the value of debate and its role in promoting the growth and development of the community of evaluation practitioners.
The Emthonjeni Center seminar topic, “Program evaluation, conservation and use”, likewise engendered debate of evaluation in conservation settings, use being central to the debate as well as challenging the audience of evaluators, academics, journalists, practitioners, independents, and graduate students specializing in evaluation, to see beyond theory to influencing practice through evaluation. As prelude to the seminar, there was a display of evaluation studies by graduate students, which Andy commented on, as well as a concluding presentation which considered the range of ways for seeing evaluation, use and influence in the academy as well as in the field.
The Wits School of Education seminar on the “Evaluation, developmental evaluation of science programs and use” to academics, science educators, specialist evaluators, independents, policy specialists and a handful of interested passersby, developmental evaluation in science programs held interest as well as ways Andy ensures data use in such programs. “Multi-level evaluation systems and conflict resolution in environmental settings”, the topic of the seminar at P&DM/Wits Business School, attracted much discussion, one being the issue of ethics in evaluation in complex institutional settings.
Attended by, amongst others, a Member of the Provincial Legislature, Senior Government officials, members of the academia and numerous government M&E practitioners, the East London Seminar dealt with the topic: “Evaluation in Conservation Settings”. Discussion in the presentation and at the social was around strengthening the practice of evaluation in the province and how to use SAMEA as a vehicle for this purpose. In Stellenbosch, the topic, “Evaluation in environmental and conservation settings” spoke directly to specialists in this field who were interested in Andy’s notion of use, on which they engaged in robust debate with him on specific issues in this field.
The SAMEA Board extends its appreciation to its strategic partners who ensured that the Seminar Series was a success, including the PSC, WITS, the Eastern Cape Office of the Premier, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Andy’s training material is available for download on www.samea.org.za for those who were not able to attend the lectures.
2010 SAMEA AGM and Training Opportunity
SAMEA will be holding an extremely relevant public forum discussion that will serve to inform the South African Government, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) practitioners, and users of evaluations about the current academic literature, debates and implementation of evaluator competencies throughout the world. As part of this event, SAMEA will hold an AGM which will be open to any SAMEA member or interested person. We hope that the AGM, combined the public forum as well as a number of courses we hope to offer as part of the event will encourage support of local M&E and increase SAMEA membership. The confirmed dates are August 18-20th, and the proposed venue is Cape Town (final details will be made available on SAMEA’s electronic platforms).
The discussion topic, “Evaluator Competencies: Professionalising the Field” is part of SAMEA’s strategy to educate, inform and encourage discussion and debate surrounding this issue in South Africa. As part of this event, SAMEA will offer M&E courses that will be taught by an international panel. South Africa needs to consider whether or not M&E competencies should be established and if so, how to go about practically implementing them. This important decision requires careful thought and consideration. The panel serves to inform that discussion and debate.
The conference will provide a platform for a panel of the world’s leading experts in the field of Evaluator Competencies to educate and inform the South African Government, M&E academics and practitioners, and evaluation users. These confirmed speakers include:
Jean King (academic/U of Minnesota),
Donna Podems (SAMEA board, author of paper on international competencies, and contributor to IDEAS and UNAIDS frameworks)
Linda Morra (Lead, IDEAS evaluator competency research)
Keiko Kuji-Shikatani (CES, lead implementer of the CES evaluator competency model)
Greet Peersman and David Hale (UNAIDS, lead developers of the UNAIDS HIV/AIDS evaluator competency framework)
Roundtable discussions will be held for those interested in particular topics, with people joining groups that are of most interest to them. We intend to offer a wider variety of courses from basic to advanced M&E. A discounted rate will be applied to all SAMEA members, guest panellists, volunteers, and sponsors, so all members and interested parties are encouraged to keep their eyes on the website for more information in this regard.
Provincial SAMEA Chapters
Presentations on establishing provincial SAMEA Chapters have been made to a number of M&E Forums coordinated by Offices of the Premier in various provinces, since this has proven to be an effective way of initiating the establishment of provincial SAMEA Chapters. One of the main reasons for this is due to the fact that the coordination of M&E is a key priority for provincial governments, and SAMEA provides an excellent point of departure for strengthening M&E networks outside of the confines of the public sector domain, for the purpose of enhancing and growing the profession.
The focus of one such presentation to the North West Province was on the potential support to the province through SAMEA’s consultancy, academic and government membership and how we could strengthen the NWP M&E systems. Regarding Limpopo, plans are afoot to locate the SAMEA Chapter in the Office of the Premier. In the Eastern Cape, the idea is to conduct quarterly 'seminars' once per quarter, and the Andy Rowe Seminar was held to be the first of such opportunities. In KZN, there are also discussions for setting up a regional chapter with both the Office of the Premier and Mangosuthu University of Technology.
All members and potential members are encouraged to get involved in their local Chapters – every province is in need of the commitment and support of the SAMEA membership, and we appeal to all to contribute to strengthening and enhancing the work of the association through volunteerism.
Website News
SAMEA members and visitors will soon reap the benefits of a new and improved browsing experience when various upgrades and new user functionality comes online on www.samea.org.za. The resources, training and events sections have been made more user friendly and a significant amount of new content has been added to these sections. Members are encouraged to contribute content to the website. SAMEA now has a Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn presence. Members are encouraged to join and actively engage with content/each other on our various electronic platforms.
The upcoming board election process will run exclusively through the website. The online “election module” will link to each member’s website login and membership status, enabling a platform where members can nominate, interact with and vote for their candidates of choice. Board nominees will be allocated one hourly timeslots prior to opening of the voting process – SAMEA members are invited to make use of these interactive opportunities to get to know the candidates and their vision for SAMEA. A detailed guide to the new nomination, canvassing and voting process will be made available on all of SAMEA’s electronic platforms.
The Code of Conduct for Electronic Platforms has also already been posted on the listserv and website since there have been occasions where non-M&E related information and postings have been sent to subscribers. Future projects include the completion of a conference registration module and the integration of the yahoo based SAMEATalk listserv with the website for a user friendly and more technologically advanced one-stop SAMEA information experience.
Final Words
With less than 50 days to go to the Fifa 2010 World Cup Soccer tournament, there is a definite buzz of excitement in the country as we prepare to host the biggest sport event in the history of South Africa. Amidst the excitement many questions are also being raised around the effect that the World Cup will have on the economy and livelihoods of ordinary South Africans. Many hope (and some predict) that it will have positive spin-offs, including creating employment, and thereby reducing poverty along with its many concomitant social challenges. Is it possible (or feasible) to evaluate the impact of the World Cup on South Africa’s development goals? Food for thought for evaluators…