From the 27th to the 31st of March 2017, the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) will host the 8th AfrEA International Conference, jointly with the Uganda Evaluation Association and the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) in the Government of Uganda. The conference will take place at the Munyonyo Speke Resort Hotel in Kampala, Uganda under the theme “Evaluation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Opportunities and Challenges for Africa”.
During a media conference held at the Uganda Media Centre, the Commissioner for Information in the Ministry of Information, Communication, Technology and National Guidance, Mr. Moses Watasa said, “The Government is proud and honoured to host this international conference in Uganda that marks the development of the evaluation profession and practice in this country and the region. The Office of the Prime Minister takes special recognition of the partnership with the Uganda Evaluation Association and the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) that has enabled us to attract the conference to the East African Region. The UEA and AfrEA have played an active role in building the capacity of professionals in the African Monitoring and Evaluation sector through innovative capacity-building activities like this one. The Conference is also a great way to market Uganda as it gives our country visibility working in our favour to boost the number of investors coming into the country”.
Government of Uganda in collaboration with its Partners takes this this opportunity to invite all interest professionals, monitoring and evaluation experts and students, officials engaged in performance management, researchers, the academia and the public to apply and participate in this important conference. The Office of Prime Minister supports is working with AfrEA and UEA to ensure that this event further enhances the networking and capacity development on performance management, monitoring and evaluation as provided in the National Monitoring and Evaluation Policy.
The conference objectives are to strengthen VOPEs (Voluntary Professional Evaluation Associations) to work with national Governments to advance the evaluation agenda, provide space for sharing experiences to enhance national evaluation capacities, showcase the use of evaluative evidence in Africa and contribute to the development of emerging evaluators. The conference will also encourage the development and documentation of high quality evaluation practice and theory, networking and sharing of evaluation theories, techniques and tools among evaluators, policymakers, researchers and development specialists.
Ms. Rosetti Nabbumba Nayenga, President of the Uganda Evaluation Association and conference co-chair added: “We are extremely pleased that Uganda is hosting the 8th AfrEA Conference. As Monitoring and Evaluation practitioners, we are gaining national and global visibility, which is a very good thing for the sector because this brings about professionalism and efficiency. With this platform we are looking at empowering members to influence national Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) policies in their respective countries and represent Africa on the global stage of M&E, a notion becoming increasingly prevalent across African states.”
Over 600 delegates from across Africa and worldwide are expected to attend the conference. The conference participants will spend two and a half days in pre-conference training workshops and another two and a half days in the main conference discussing various critical evaluation issues. The delegates are expected to demonstrate the value of, and learn from their Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) investments and targets. The conference is expected to attract Government representatives, African Parliament representatives, donors, researchers, academia and emerging evaluators and practitioners. The Forum will enable participants to share experiences, lessons, challenges and the impact of M&E on the environment. It will also identify ways to strengthen and re-orient VOPEs to ensure strong, efficient and well-funded institutions capable of driving development.
The 8th AfrEA International conference will have numerous potential benefits for Uganda, East Africa, Africa and the world at large. The improvement of M&E practice will improve learning and decision-making by public policy makers for enhanced development outcomes.
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