AfrEA President Spotlights “Made in Africa Evaluation” at Global Frontier Lecture

Last week, the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) took a significant step forward in bringing African perspectives to the global academic stage. Our President, Dr. Miché Ouédraogo, served as the distinguished guest for the Frontier Lecture Series on Evidence-Based Social Science (No. 52).

The prestigious event was jointly hosted by the Center for Evidence-Based Social Science at Lanzhou University and the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI).

A Bold Vision for African Evaluation

During the lecture, Dr. Ouédraogo spotlighted the evolving vision for Made in Africa Evaluation (MAE). Moving beyond standard methodologies, he presented MAE not merely as a technical framework, but as a movement deeply rooted in African agency, indigenous knowledge, and local leadership.

He provided a comprehensive overview of the current state of the field, addressing:

• The epistemology and foundations that underpin African evaluation methods.
• Distinct MAE approaches that differentiate African evaluation from Western-centric models.
• The challenges currently facing evaluators and institutions across the continent.

From Theory to Practice: AfrEA’s Initiatives

Dr. Ouédraogo highlighted how AfrEA is actively operationalizing this vision. He detailed several key initiatives designed to institutionalize and promote MAE, including:

• The African Evaluation Principles: Guidelines ensuring evaluations are culturally relevant and ethically sound.
• The African Evaluation Journal: A platform for scholarly discourse and documenting African evaluation evidence.
• AfrEA Conferences: The premier gathering for networking and capacity building.
• The African School of Evaluation: An upcoming initiative set to train the next generation of evaluators.

Dr. Ouédraogo’s participation in the Frontier Lecture Series reinforces our commitment to shifting the narrative, ensuring that evaluation in Africa is defined, led, and executed by Africans.