Given Hapunda

20 in the NGO sector. Advances are coming through in other sectors, but more efforts need to be invested in improving application of participatory methods across all sectors, particularly in public services. Background of M&E in the International or Global Space Globally, the international status of M&E as a field remains theoretically and methodologically influenced by the American tradition. According to Basheka et al ., (2015) “the United States (US) is regarded as the motherland of the field in terms of its trends, number of authors and their academic and professional influence, degree of professionalisation, focus of academic programmes, legislation and institutionalisation of evaluation, development of models and approaches for evaluation, evaluation capacity building initiatives, evaluation standards and guiding principles, number and attendees of evaluation conferences and workshops, publications and their impact factor, guides and evaluation handbooks”. As the M&E field was developing in the USA, it was also spreading to other countries including the African continent. Table 1 below gives a summary of key developments in the field of M&E in the USA, UK and in Africa. It is not an exhaustive list but it shows some of the key background milestones in the development of M&E internationally and in Africa. Table 1: Evolution of M&E in Africa Timeline M&E Developments 1980- 1990s  Emergence of Programme Evaluation in the NPO sector Africa  The Donor Community as catalyst  First wave of evaluation  The “first generation of evaluators”: 1988- 2000 1990s – 2000s  Second wave of programme evaluation  International private donor funding (M&E requirements)  Local and corporate sector M&E requirements  The Establishment of Monitoring and Evaluation Associations in Africa including the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA)  The rise of the M&E Consultancy  Building Indigenous M&E capacity  Formal academic training courses  African Evaluation Association formed in 1998 (AfrEA)  First AfrEA conference takes place in 1999 Post 2000  M&E Units, staff and reporting within African governments  Building Indigenous M&E capacity  Formal academic training courses  Transition from traditional M&E to a results-based M&E Framework  Second AfrEA Conference held in 2002