Evaluation frameworks for development projects have long been influenced by donor priorities. But foreign-aid cuts have created an opportunity for African countries to implement equitable evaluation practices, both to channel limited resources more effectively and to shape the future of global development governance.
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JOHANNESBURG—As donor governments slash aid budgets, and multilateral institutions come under increasing financial strain, development organizations must confront the combination of growing need and declining resources. How to address persistent challenges such as poverty and inequality, climate change, and humanitarian crises with fewer resources is an especially urgent question in Africa, where many countries have long relied on external financing to support essential programs and services.
The answer lies in how development is monitored and evaluated, often framed as a neutral, technical exercise measuring whether projects have achieved their objectives. In fact, evaluation is deeply political: it reflects what is seen as important and whose knowledge is trusted, and it influences which programs continue to receive funding. Thus, evaluation determines how resources are allocated and whose solutions are supported and expanded.
More significantly, the standards by which development projects are assessed are important not only for deciding where to channel limited resources, but also for shaping the future of global development governance. The African Union and its member states have long called for reforms to the international development and financial architecture, advocating greater representation, more equitable financing, and a stronger voice for Africa in global decision-making. But these reforms, while important, often overlook another powerful driver of change: control over knowledge and evidence.
To date, evaluation frameworks have largely been influenced by donor priorities, with the aim of tracking and comparing results across contexts. As a result, they often fail to capture the realities within communities and rarely reflect local values. When funders define success, the communities most affected by development programs are treated as sources of data rather than partners in deciding what constitutes meaningful change and how to measure it. As argued in the volume Equitable Evaluation: Voices from the Global South (which two of us co-edited), donors’ expectations and desired outputs take precedence over those of local communities.
With fewer resources now available, and their allocation increasingly dependent on evidence demonstrating impact, there is no better time to implement equitable evaluation practices, which challenge the idea that development can be understood through universal indicators alone. This methodological innovation is grounded in the belief that evidence is shaped by history, context, culture, and power, and that these factors must be considered if evaluation is to advance equity.
African countries and communities, in particular, could adopt Made in Africa Evaluation approaches, which seek to assess development projects according to African realities, values, and priorities. That means recognizing Indigenous knowledge, local institutions, and community experiences as important sources of evidence, while emphasizing that evaluation should reflect the social, cultural, and political contexts in which development takes place. Such a shift ultimately reshapes who holds authority over knowledge itself.
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Community participation forces governments to be accountable to citizens, not just funders. For example, when rural health committees monitor clinic performance using community-designed scorecards rather than relying on donor audits, facility managers can identify and respond more quickly to drug shortages, long wait times, or service gaps, while health authorities gain access to locally generated evidence.
Similarly, when farmers help assess irrigation projects, evaluations have revealed practical constraints—such as unreliable water supplies, inadequate maintenance, and inequitable land distribution—that may be overlooked by externally designed indicators. These data can also inform national priorities, resulting in more responsive and efficient development spending. And if regional institutions build their own evaluation capacities, countries will become less dependent on frameworks that may not reflect their development goals.
As such examples show, giving African countries a greater say in international institutions is not enough to reform global development governance. Structural transformation requires giving them a greater role in the collection, interpretation, and use of data and evidence. Without significant changes to evaluation and the resulting knowledge production, calls to “decolonize development” will continue to ring hollow.
The current aid landscape underscores the urgency of this task. The scaling down of foreign assistance should not mean abandoning commitments to equity. Governments, donors, and development organizations should instead work even harder to direct the remaining funds to those who have historically been excluded. This requires evaluation systems capable of revealing inequalities rather than masking them behind national averages and aggregate performance indicators.
It is unclear whether the era of abundant foreign aid is ending or experiencing a temporary crisis. Either way, this moment has created an opening to rethink development cooperation and foster more trust in how these resources are used. In Africa, that can be achieved by ensuring that evaluation practices capture communities’ lived realities and allow success to be defined collaboratively rather than imposed externally.
JOHANNESBURG—As donor governments slash aid budgets, and multilateral institutions come under increasing financial strain, development organizations must confront the combination of growing need and declining resources. How to address persistent challenges such as poverty and inequality, climate change, and humanitarian crises with fewer resources is an especially urgent question in Africa, where many countries have long relied on external financing to support essential programs and services.
The answer lies in how development is monitored and evaluated, often framed as a neutral, technical exercise measuring whether projects have achieved their objectives. In fact, evaluation is deeply political: it reflects what is seen as important and whose knowledge is trusted, and it influences which programs continue to receive funding. Thus, evaluation determines how resources are allocated and whose solutions are supported and expanded.
More significantly, the standards by which development projects are assessed are important not only for deciding where to channel limited resources, but also for shaping the future of global development governance. The African Union and its member states have long called for reforms to the international development and financial architecture, advocating greater representation, more equitable financing, and a stronger voice for Africa in global decision-making. But these reforms, while important, often overlook another powerful driver of change: control over knowledge and evidence.
To date, evaluation frameworks have largely been influenced by donor priorities, with the aim of tracking and comparing results across contexts. As a result, they often fail to capture the realities within communities and rarely reflect local values. When funders define success, the communities most affected by development programs are treated as sources of data rather than partners in deciding what constitutes meaningful change and how to measure it. As argued in the volume Equitable Evaluation: Voices from the Global South (which two of us co-edited), donors’ expectations and desired outputs take precedence over those of local communities.
With fewer resources now available, and their allocation increasingly dependent on evidence demonstrating impact, there is no better time to implement equitable evaluation practices, which challenge the idea that development can be understood through universal indicators alone. This methodological innovation is grounded in the belief that evidence is shaped by history, context, culture, and power, and that these factors must be considered if evaluation is to advance equity.
African countries and communities, in particular, could adopt Made in Africa Evaluation approaches, which seek to assess development projects according to African realities, values, and priorities. That means recognizing Indigenous knowledge, local institutions, and community experiences as important sources of evidence, while emphasizing that evaluation should reflect the social, cultural, and political contexts in which development takes place. Such a shift ultimately reshapes who holds authority over knowledge itself.
Sharpen your perspective
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Community participation forces governments to be accountable to citizens, not just funders. For example, when rural health committees monitor clinic performance using community-designed scorecards rather than relying on donor audits, facility managers can identify and respond more quickly to drug shortages, long wait times, or service gaps, while health authorities gain access to locally generated evidence.
Similarly, when farmers help assess irrigation projects, evaluations have revealed practical constraints—such as unreliable water supplies, inadequate maintenance, and inequitable land distribution—that may be overlooked by externally designed indicators. These data can also inform national priorities, resulting in more responsive and efficient development spending. And if regional institutions build their own evaluation capacities, countries will become less dependent on frameworks that may not reflect their development goals.
As such examples show, giving African countries a greater say in international institutions is not enough to reform global development governance. Structural transformation requires giving them a greater role in the collection, interpretation, and use of data and evidence. Without significant changes to evaluation and the resulting knowledge production, calls to “decolonize development” will continue to ring hollow.
The current aid landscape underscores the urgency of this task. The scaling down of foreign assistance should not mean abandoning commitments to equity. Governments, donors, and development organizations should instead work even harder to direct the remaining funds to those who have historically been excluded. This requires evaluation systems capable of revealing inequalities rather than masking them behind national averages and aggregate performance indicators.
It is unclear whether the era of abundant foreign aid is ending or experiencing a temporary crisis. Either way, this moment has created an opening to rethink development cooperation and foster more trust in how these resources are used. In Africa, that can be achieved by ensuring that evaluation practices capture communities’ lived realities and allow success to be defined collaboratively rather than imposed externally.
Facts Only
* Donor governments are slashing aid budgets.
* Multilateral institutions are under increasing financial strain.
* Development organizations face growing need and declining resources.
* Evaluation is framed as a neutral, technical exercise measuring objective achievement.
* Evaluation reflects what is seen as important and whose knowledge is trusted.
* Evaluation influences resource allocation and program funding.
* Evaluation frameworks are largely influenced by donor priorities when tracking results across contexts.
* Funders' expectations often take precedence over local community expectations regarding success metrics.
* Methodological innovation should challenge the idea that development can be understood through universal indicators alone.
* Adopting "Made in Africa Evaluation" approaches involves recognizing Indigenous knowledge, local institutions, and community experiences as evidence.
* Community participation allows for monitoring using locally designed scorecards to identify service gaps.
* Local-generated data can inform national priorities regarding irrigation projects and development spending.
Executive Summary
Donor governments reducing aid budgets and multilateral institutions facing financial strain necessitate a reevaluation of development monitoring and evaluation practices, particularly in Africa where external financing is crucial for addressing challenges like poverty and climate change. The commentary argues that current evaluation frameworks are heavily influenced by donor priorities, often failing to reflect local realities or community values, as funders prioritize their desired outputs over those of affected communities. This dynamic influences resource allocation and determines whose solutions are supported in global development governance.
There is a call for implementing equitable evaluation practices that move beyond universal indicators to incorporate local knowledge, context, culture, and power when assessing development projects. Approaches like "Made in Africa Evaluation" are proposed to recognize Indigenous knowledge and local institutions as valid sources of evidence. Furthermore, community participation in monitoring, such as through locally designed scorecards, can provide essential, context-specific data that informs efficient spending and accountability.
Ultimately, structural transformation requires granting African countries greater control over the collection, interpretation, and use of data to ensure development efforts are equitable and responsive to local needs rather than externally imposed standards.
Full Take
The assertion that evaluation is deeply political, determining resource allocation and shaping global governance, points to a fundamental tension between technical accountability and epistemic authority. The pattern observed is that the locus of knowledge—and thus power—remains with external funders, creating a system where local communities are relegated to the role of data sources rather than co-creators of meaning regarding development success. This structure aligns with a historical pattern of colonial or neo-colonial governance, where imposing standardized metrics masks underlying structural inequalities by framing them as mere operational failures rather than systemic imbalances.
The proposal for "Made in Africa Evaluation" suggests an attempt to disrupt this hierarchy by centering epistemologies rooted in local experience. The implication is that achieving true equity in development requires a shift from measuring externally defined objectives to assessing internally validated realities, thereby shifting authority over knowledge itself. This move addresses the core structural problem: when evaluation systems are not owned locally, calls for "decolonizing development" remain aspirational rather than actionable, as evidenced by the examples showing how local data can lead to practical improvements in health and infrastructure management.
The challenge lies in the transition from recognizing local knowledge as supplemental input to establishing it as the primary framework for assessing impact. The risk is that if not carefully managed, incorporating local perspectives without dismantling established institutional power structures risks simply replacing one set of imposed metrics with another set dictated by local political actors.
Sentinel — Human
The text reads as a well-structured, synthesized commentary arguing for context-aware evaluation methods in development, supported by thematic examples rather than pure data reporting.