The lack of accountability and limited government transparency continue to hamper Africa’s economic and socio-political development.
Poor management, inadequate technical skills and internal administrative irregularities weaken the control of governments over the human and natural resources in their countries. Many governments apply resources ineffectively, without a long-term vision in mind. We witness this in a number of countries on a daily basis, where a lack of open debate and discussion on key priority area persists.
Fortunately, we are also beginning to see some countries rising to these challenges. Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania, are excellent examples of countries which are stepping up to be more accountable and creating space for civil society to speak out forcefully and freely.
Need for New Perspectives
Key catalysts for Africa’s economic growth, mainly the natural resources and primary sectors, take the most strain from poor governance. Sectors such as mining, oil and gas, land-use, agriculture, fisheries and forestry are often undermined by the lack of astute leadership styles and appropriate economic policies. Consequently, opportunities for corruption emerge.
Without supportive, transparent systems in these sectors, governments will continue to undermine productivity and efforts at equal distribution of wealth. This in turn compromises the potential for growth and prolong the negative filter-through effect to public service delivery in such areas as health, education, water and sanitation, and food security.
Ironically, Africa is home to six of the world’s fastest growing economies in the world, yet the growth of poverty continues. The mismatch between poverty alleviation and economic thrust demands answers, new perspectives and fresh approaches from African governments and their partners.
Uptake of Evidence-Based Research
How can we do it better? Through the services we offer, Khulisa plays a strategic role in addressing a variety of the continent’s inadequacies. The critical expert service that we provide in the evaluation and performance monitoring of on-going programmes hones in on wasteful public expenditure, poor allocation of resources and project shortfalls, thereby contributing to overall economic growth.
In recent years, donor demands influenced the supply of evaluation services in Africa, stimulating the development of M&E practice. International aid agencies and foundations began to ask hard-hitting questions about the effectiveness of their funding efforts, relying on data to increase performance.
More exciting, is the fact that the demand for evaluative evidence now also stems from home. With the amplified voice of civil society and the public’s demand for accountability and transparency, many governments can no longer tiptoe around their inefficiencies.
Khulisa is making a key contribution to the growing need for regional, national and international capacity to supply evaluative practice and evidence. Related to this is the need to provide development policymakers with the appropriate skills to use evidence in decisionmaking.
The policies African countries adopt today are vital to the growth of the continent tomorrow. Khulisa aims to continue to play a prominent role in the development of government policies, through evidence-based research.
