Minister Radebe's speech on the South African Launch of EvalYear

[Asela Kalugampitiya]

Minister Jeff Radebe: Launch of International Year of Evaluation

19 Mar 2015

Address by Minister Jeff Radebe during the launch of the International Year of Evaluation, Wits University

Programme Director,
Professor Richard Levin,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen, and all protocols observed. 

Let me start by thanking the organisers of this event, the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA), my department: the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), the Public Service Commission (PSC), the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR) and the University of Witwatersrand (Wits).

As you all know, South Africa has recently adopted its first National Development Plan and Vision 2030, which serves as a blueprint of the country towards the eradication of the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality. Key to the success of this plan are the partnerships between government, private sector and civil society - working together towards common objectives. 

I'm therefore very delighted that key organisations from various sectors of our society have recognised a need to collaborate in organising today's event and planning for the entire International Year of Evaluation project in South Africa. Of critical importance, this partnership seeks to develop evaluation capacity in our country and assist in institutionalising the discipline in various sectors of society.

Even our late national icon, the father of our nation and the first President of a democratic South Africa, isithwalandwe Nelson Mandela, expressed the same sentiment on the importance of partnerships in society, during the opening of Dalindyebo Senior Secondary School, in Qunu on 14 August 1998, when he said, and I quote:

"Partnerships between government, the private sector and communities are critical in the development of our country. No sector on its own, least government, can succeed in ensuring that we do improve the quality of life of our people.”

I would also like to express my heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to the architects of the International Year of Evaluation concept, the international network, EvalPartners. Without their vision and foresight, we wouldn't be here today. I hope and pray that the letter and spirit of this campaign will continue post 2015. Indeed, as a country, we share the sentiment that evaluation has a central role in development.

Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As you all know, President Jacob Zuma's administration in 2009 established a Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation as a tool for improving government performance and to change the whole approach on how government works. The purpose was to ensure an outcome orientation within government, (rather than simply outputs or activities) to focus on a limited number of key strategic priorities of government, and to promote a coordinated whole-of-government approach to achieve these outcomes, going beyond the silos.

Since the establishment of the Department, great progress has been recorded, with plans for the priority outcomes developed, and quarterly monitoring reports on these outcomes provided to Cabinet. These provide the President together with Cabinet the opportunity to assess progress and introduce interventions where necessary.

Initially we targeted 12 outcomes but we have since included 2 additional outcomes, and we now have 14 outcomes which range from education, health, employment to social cohesion

Other critical systems developed by my department have been for monitoring of front-line services, and for assessment of the management performance of government departments. Of late we have introduced Operation Phakisa, an innovative pioneering approach aimed at improving service delivery and implementing priority government programmes more effectively and to fast track the Implementation of critical development issues highlighted in the National Development Plan such as poverty and unemployment.

Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen,

An important element that has been developed by my department in the monitoring and evaluation toolkit, is the evaluation component of the system. A National Evaluation Policy Framework (NEPF) was approved by Cabinet on 23 November 2011.

The Framework draws from the experience of a number of countries, and in particular from a study tour to Mexico, Colombia and United States that South Africa undertook in June/July 2011. Some of the key lessons to emerge from this study tour were:

1. The need for a system with standardised components
2. The importance to link to the planning system (as you are evaluating against plans)
3. A budget allocation for evaluation in the range of 2-5% of programme budgets
4. The need for a common language around evaluation
5. The need for a champion/central capacity with technical expertise to drive the system,
6. The need for a suite of types of evaluations
7. The need for evaluations to be independent and credible
8. The need to ensure follow-up, so that the results of the evaluations are used. Improvement plans should be developed based on the evaluations and their implementation closely monitored.  

These key lessons have been incorporated into our Policy Framework, taking into account the realities of our local context. I'm pleased to inform you that our evaluation system is now recognised internationally and our Evaluation Policy Framework has even been translated into Russian for use in Kyrgystan! Partners are also in the process of translating the policy into brail to ensure that the blind population of our society also have access to it.

Our national icon, former President Nelson Mandela, also said:

What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” 

As Madiba has taught us, DPME is undertaking evaluations to make a difference in the lives of our people. As government, we are determined to achieve the following four primary purposes through evaluations:

1. To improve performance of government.
2. To improve accountability. We want to know where is public spending going? and whether government spending is making a difference.
3. To generate knowledge of what works and what does not with regards to our public policies, or programmes, which allow government to build an evidence base for future policy development.
4. To make decisions on the worth of our programmes and policies and whether to continue or replace them.

From the inception of the evaluation system, our starting point was to improve the quality of evaluations in the country with the hope that quality evaluations would translate into utilisation of findings and, in the final analysis improvement in government performance.

As government, we have taken a strategic approach to focus on limited evaluations of priority policies/programmes/plans of government, linked to the 14 outcomes and those selected, are embedded in a National Evaluation Plan (NEP). Selection is made by a cross-government Evaluation Technical Working Group (ETWG) and the plan approved by Cabinet. 

So far, Cabinet has approved 4 national evaluation plans containing 46 evaluations since the approval of the National Evaluation Policy Framework in 2011. Out of these 46, 22 have been completed, 11 approved, and 6 of these served at Cabinet and they are already available on the departmental website.

These evaluation cover around R50 billion of government expenditure. This year my department will be undertaking 10 priority evaluations in collaboration with custodian departments covering around a further R25 billion of government expenditure.

Our approach is that evaluation is not only something which happens at the end of a programme or policy, but as a series of activities at different stages of our management cycle, with the diagnostic evaluation before an intervention, design evaluation after the plan has been done, implementation evaluation during the implementation of the programme/policy and impact evaluation at the end or at key milestones of the policy/plan/programme.

We do not want to wait until it is too late.

Evaluations are already having an impact. Cabinet approved a couple of weeks ago a revised Policy on Early Childhood Development, based on the recommendations of the first evaluation that piloted the national evaluation system. The Business Process Services Scheme has been relaunched based on the results of the evaluation.

The Department of Basic Education is rethinking its support to Grade R based on the conclusions that the quality of Grade R provision was limiting its impact. However some departments have been slower at implementing the recommendations and that is something we will work on in this year.

As Government we have embarked on several key initiatives to support the wider evaluation system, so that all departments and provinces undertake quality evaluations and implement the recommendations. Let me single out some of these key initiatives: 

1. We have trained senior management teams of departments in the importance of evidence, including M&E evidence, with 9 DGs and over 70 DDGs and Chief Directors participating so far, with two more courses planned this year. This is important for senior management to see the importance of using evidence.

2. 4 evaluation courses have been developed and over 800 government staff have been trained so far,

3. 18 evaluation guidelines have been developed on various components of the evaluation system and they are available on DPME's website,

4. We have developed Standards for evaluations and competences for government officials, which we have consulted on widely across South Africa. These are benchmarks for performance and they have been embedded in various components of the evaluation system. To ensure objectivity and independence of the evaluation process, evaluations are undertaken by a panel of evaluation experts most of whom are experienced academics from our universities. 

5.   Evaluations are peer reviewed by a panel of experts to ensure that the end product is of acceptable quality.

6.   Evaluations are a partnership between my department and the custodian departments that are being evaluated and steering committees are established as collaborative mechanisms. My department is co-funding evaluations, but we have also been benefitting from the kind support of our donors. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank all our donors, especially the Department for International Development (DIFID) for their continued support since the establishment of the national evaluation system in 2011.

7.   Post-evaluation, the affected department is expected to provide a management response to the recommendations indicating whether it agrees or disagrees with the recommendations and if it disagrees, strong reasons for disagreement must be provided.

8.   A critical component of our evaluation system is the improvement plan. Post-evaluation, departments supported by my officials and other relevant stakeholders, are required to develop an improvement plan. An improvement plan outlines strategies for improvement, based on   recommendations by an independent evaluator and specifies outputs, activities, time frames and responsible individuals. We expect departments to report on progress every six months for a period of two years.

9.   We have created an Evaluation Repository consisting of over 100 government evaluations quality assessed by independent quality assessors. For the first time, the public now has access to a broad spectrum of evaluations in government.

10.  This year we have commissioned a Feasibility Study on Professionalisation of Evaluation in South Africa in partnership with SAMEA. The findings of the study will guide us as a country on the best route that we should follow in professionalising evaluation and it will provide a roadmap to professionalising evaluation.

11.  On 6 August 2014 Cabinet approved a memorandum on programme planning. We are seeking to improve the design and quality of government implementation programmes and to ensure that they are evaluable. We are also in the process of commissioning an audit of programmes, which will assess how many programmes there are in a number of departments, and the state of those programmes.

12.  As you know, we have recently incorporated the planning function in our portfolio and this year we will be evaluating the departmental strategic planning and annual performance planning system of government.

These are but some of our initiatives to improve the quality of evaluations in the county and to promote the use of evidence from evaluations.

Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have worked closely with other stakeholders in and outside government to make the evaluation system a success and to build wider ownership. At provincial level, my officials are working closely with all nine provinces providing technical support and helping in developing Provincial Evaluation Plans linked to provincial priority interventions.

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that Gauteng, Western Cape, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape are already implementing approved Provincial Evaluation Plans and, Free State, North West, KZN and Eastern Cape are finalising their plans. 

We have worked extensively with SAMEA as the broader representative of the M&E community, right from consultation around the National Evaluation Policy Framework, around standards and competencies, around capacity development and professionalization, and around the biannual SAMEA Conferences.

We acknowledge the critical role that SAMEA has made in bringing evaluation onto the map in South Africa. We have a standing committee of officials from DPME and SAMEA to look at issues of common interest. We have invested time and funds to help ensure that SAMEA plays its rightful role as effectively as possible.

We also see the importance of other stakeholders in the evaluation system: the universities who build the skills base and undertakes some of the evaluations, the professional evaluators who undertake the evaluations, Parliament who can use evaluations as part of their oversight function, the think tanks which use evaluation results, and of course the public who can access the evaluations as they are made public and use them for increasing the accountability of government.

Although a lot has been achieved, we still have a lot of work to improve the lives of our people.  As Madiba told us in his Autobiography, long walk to Freedom:

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter, I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come.

But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.

South Africa joins the rest of the international community in celebrating the International Year of Evaluation.

We have learnt from international partners such as Mexico and Colombia and are currently working with partners in Africa to create a regional M&E partnership, Twende Mbele, working particularly closely with Uganda and Benin. It is important for us to play a responsible role internationally, and I note the messages of support which come from some of our partners.

I fervently hope that the International Year of Evaluation campaign will mobilise millions of our people around the globe in promoting the use of evidence derived from evaluations to understand how to improve governments work, and its impact on citizens and so contribute towards eradication of the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Inde lendlela.

With these few words, I hereby launch the International Year of Evaluation in South Africa.

I thank you!

Issued by: 

The Presidency