Description

Zambia on 3rd November joined the rest of the international community in celebrating 2015 as the Year of Evaluation. At the same event, it was also the day that the Zambia Monitoring and Evaluation Association (ZaMEA) was officially launched. The celebration of an international and local milestone marked also the result of cooperation between the Zambian Government, Cooperating partners and the Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) community in Zambia. 2015, therefore, is the year when the potential of harnessing the synergy of the three partners in the development of M & E was realised. It is also a year of burying the old and starting a new life for the M & E fraternity. Two former Voluntary Organisations for Professional Evaluations (VOPEs) in Zambia were on that day officially buried. The Zambia Evaluation Association (ZEA) and the Monitoring and Support Systems of Zambia (MESSY) had merged into ZaMEA. The official launch of ZaMEA was to publicly show the whole world the unity of the Zambian M & E fraternity and to celebrate the birth of a new VOPE.

Expectations

With the birth of ZaMEA, come new expectations. One major expectation of ZaMEA, is that it will be able to deliver better services to its members than the former VOPEs. Another one is that it will build on the foundations of the past VOPES to foster closer partnership with other stakeholders in the development of Zambia. It’s commendable that ZaMEA has already fostered this closeness with UNICEF and the Ministry of National Development Planning (MNDP). There is still room for fostering closer partnership with other cooperating partners, Zambian civil society, Government and the public. Another expectation is that it will up its public visibility. ZaMEA should be seen by the public to take up its position among the associations that are major players on the Zambian social and economic development‘s arena. With its valuable expertise of members across the sectors of development, it should stand up and be seen to be offering its expertise to the nation. The Zambian government has called on Zambians to help solve the current social and economic challenges that the country is facing. Zambia has, like many other countries dependent on one major export product, been facing challenges due to a down turn in the demand for its copper by China and the low price of copper on the world market. It has also been facing major challenges due to climatic change. The low level of water in the Kariba dam has affected Zambia’s generation of electricity. This has adversely affected national productivity and is estimated to have gone down by 40%

2016 and the possibilities for ZaMEA

i. There is potential for ZaMEA to become a major Think House for the Zambian government. It already has a close relationship with the MNDP. It need now to be proactive and offer advice to MNDP in its areas of expertise that the Zambian government can use in its quest to find quick and long term solutions to the current national development challenges.
ii. There are other sectors of the nation that ZaMEA can also endeavour to get involved in. The Zambian Government has formulated policies for many of the sectors. However, these policies need independent evaluations. ZaMEA is in a position to offer its expertise for such evaluation services.
iii. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being ushered in. Each country will need to prioritise the areas of SDGs that are of great importance to it. There are also issues of setting targets. ZaMEA is well positioned to help the government to carry out this exercise well.
iv. 2016 will be a year when the government will become busy preparing the Seventh National Development Plan (7th NDP). ZaMEA should start working on proposals for inclusion in the 7th NDP before the MNDP asks for them.
v. ZaMEA should in 2016 endeavour to get closer to leaders at national and local government level. These are Councillors (local government level) and Members of Parliament (national level). It should embark at getting to have leaders to know more about M & E. To foster the culture for using evaluation in order to enhance decision making, leaders need to be aware of the available tools for gathering the required evidence.
vi. Apart from state leaders, traditional leaders need to be encompassed in the program of developing a culture for using evaluations in Zambia. Traditional tribal leaders are custodians of customs in Zambia. They are, therefore, still strong forces in our societies that could be used to bring in the required developmental changes; e.g. in the issues of gender equality and equity focused development in Zambia. ZaMEA could, therefore, do well to foster a closer relationship with traditional leaders.
vii. The public also need to become an area of focus for ZaMEA. 2016 is the year of the general election. ZaMEA could place itself to serve Zambia in good governance by giving out independent information to the public. This could help the public to be better informed about the election process, how to determine better political leadership and how the public could in future monitor governance and the performance of their leaders.
viii. Apart from fostering closer internal links with other partners and the government,
ix. Improving services for members is also a major issue that could be tackled in 2016.
x. Zambia, like many other countries, has been trying to develop local capacity in M & E. 2016 could be a year to accelerate the development of M & E in Zambia. ZaMEA could get involved in discussions with academic institutions and the government on developing M & E courses and qualifications.
xi. Members also need to be very active in ZaMEA. It hasn’t the resources to be able to deliver all the members’ required services. Therefore, it very much needs members to volunteer to help it out. A stronger VOPE, means a stronger local profession. Individual members may not have extra funds to donate to ZaMEA but may volunteer their time and expertise.
xii. ZaMEA should also try to enlist more evaluation firms. One way to pitch is by telling them the strength of a strong association than of a single firm or Consultant in a volatile world. Another way is to try and make them see the long term benefits of trying to develop the VOPE and a culture for demand of M & E internally by the public and private sector. The traditional reliance on the current drivers of the demand for M & E is now being tested. In Zambia, it’s the major international development agencies that have traditionally driven the demand for M & E. As the focus of the foreign governments that runs most of the development agencies are changing and funding being cut, the commissioned assignments are dwindling. Since it’s now a seller’s market due to depressed employment opportunities across the globe, there’s a ‘leave or take it’ attitude among most commissioners of evaluations and employers of evaluators. Commissioners and employers are first to break the terms of contracts knowing very well that an evaluator doesn’t have the power to enforce it; e.g. dates of payment. Most are not prompt payers. This has sometimes tended to create slave terms for evaluators. Strong VOPEs should be able to stand up for their members and fight for example, for basic conditions of service and may be minimum ‘wages’ to be given to evaluators by employers and commissioners. VOPEs could help members fight, for example, to reduce the high variance in payments for the same type of assignments between locals and foreign evaluators. Why should a local evaluator be forced to receive $200/day while another evaluator gets $3,000/day? How do the local firms sustain their operations and staff, including emerging evaluators/interns, in this kind of environment? Survival is in unity!