Background
To commemorate its 25th anniversary, the Operations Evaluation Department (OPEV) of the African Development Bank (AfDB) is launching an essay contest on evaluation in Africa. The top three winners will receive both financial and non-financial prizes as described below.
The winner of the 2012 competition will receive a prize during the upcoming 2012 AfDB Evaluation Week, which will take place in Tunis, Tunisia, from December 3 to 6, 2012. The theme of the week is "Evaluation Matters for Development in Africa". The essay contest will also help in raising awareness on the importance of development evaluation in Africa's pursuit of prosperity.
Topic
In line with the theme of the 2012 Evaluation Week, the essay topic is "Real world African evaluations in Africa that made a difference". The essay should focus on the utilization of evaluation findings, lessons and recommendations by decision-makers, and how they led to changed policies, strategies, practices, projects or governance. Ideally, the essay should be based on one or several specific evaluation case studies.
Key points to address:
The challenges the evaluators faced in making their evaluation(s) relevant, used, and useful; and how utilization can be enhanced.
The specific elements that helped make a difference, for instance, stakeholder engagement,formulation of meaningful and useful evaluation questions/issues, appropriateness of method(s), evaluation plan, management of quality assurance, or specific efforts in ensuring dissemination, publication and use of key findings. What could or would have happened without the evaluation.
