Dr Takunda Chirau

Nominee name: Dr Taku Chirau

Nominee job title: Evaluation Systems Leader

Nominee company: Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results Anglophone Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Nominee Sector: Academia- High Education

An indication of any past involvement in SAMEA activities: In 2019- 7th Bi-Annual conference, I gave an oral presentation on ‘How does institutionalisation of M&E by government influence the wider ecosystem: emerging evidence from African countries. I also conducted a workshop with Ms Matodzi, M. Amisi and Mr Ayabulela Dlakavu on Institutionalizing the use of Evaluation evidence to support development objective: building and sustaining evaluation systems (2 days)

What is the biggest challenge facing M&E in SA? There are a cocktail of challenges confronting M&E in South Africa. They can be read as (a) the lack of standardized evaluator competencies to guide the evaluation quality and capacity strengthening; (b) lack of technical skills for undertaking evaluations especially in the public sector e.g. government ministries, departments and agencies; (c) inadequate utilisation of evaluative evidence in policy and decision making (d) systems for collecting, synthesizing, analyzing, reporting and using evidence are not well integrated into systems for policy making, planning, and learning; and (e) lack of stewardship/ championship in integrating monitoring and evaluation into existing processes and making sure that they support and complement procedures in ways that add real value and enhance outcomes

What should SAMEA achieve, in the next three years? (a) SAMEA needs to be celebrated as a leader in Africa for championing the indigenisation of evaluation. There is a need for a transition from talking about the Made in Africa evaluations to taking action in institutionalisation (developing M&E infrastructure for Made in Africa) and persuading governments and non-governmental institutions to adopt such; (b) adoption and implementation of evaluation competencies to ensure a cadre of quality evaluators and their outputs (evaluations); and (c) SAMEA must create more platforms for emerging evaluators.

What major contribution will you bring to SAMEA and its membership? I have experience and qualifications in strengthening M&E capacity in South African and the region. I also have experience in working with other Voluntary Organisations for Professional Evaluators e.g. Rwanda Monitoring and Evaluation Society; Tanzania Monitoring and Evaluation Association; and Zimbabwe Monitoring and Evaluation Association.