From evidence to values-based decision making in African parliaments
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X20918370 |
| Subject Matter | Academic Article |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X20918370
Evaluation Journal of Australasia
2020, Vol. 20(2) 68 –85
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1035719X20918370
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From evidence to values-
based decision making in
African parliaments
Caitlin Blaser Mapitsa , Aisha Jore Ali
and Linda Sibonile Khumalo
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Abstract
Monitoring and Evaluation discourse in Africa has evolved to focus on building systems
at a national level. While this systemic approach has many advantages, its implementation
often runs up against the uncomfortable reality that governments have complex incentives
to use evidence, and this evidence can equally contribute to decision making that is neither
development-focused nor democratic if values are not part of the conversation. Much of
the literature on public-sector reform focuses on evidence-based policy making. While
relevant, it does not reflect on values, and this article will argue that acknowledging the
central role values play in interpreting evidence is critical to effective national evaluation
system building. To make this argument, this article will present and discuss vignettes from
the parliaments of Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe that illustrate the
pivotal role values have played in interpreting and acting on evidence in a parliamentary
context. Finally, it makes a case for the discourse about evidence-based policy making to
consider values-based policy making as an appropriate lens for parliaments to acknowledge
and engage with the complex landscape of the politics of evidence.
Keywords
democratic evaluation, evidence, governance, national evaluation systems,
parliaments
Introduction
African governments are increasingly building the evaluation function into the public-
sector bureaucracy. While the structures and processes of doing this have varied across
Corresponding author:
Caitlin Blaser Mapitsa, University of the Witwatersrand, P.O. Box 85166, Emmarentia, Johannesburg
2195, South Africa.
Email: caitlin.mapitsa@wits.ac.za
918370EVJ0010.1177/1035719X20918370Evaluation Journal of AustralasiaBlaser Mapitsa et al.
research-article2020
Academic Article
Blaser Mapitsa et al. 69
national contexts, the practice is responding to a range of imperatives, from the United
Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which call for country-led evaluation systems,
to donors which increasingly demand evaluations as a demonstration of effectiveness, to
increasing democratic pressure on ministries and departments to show performance and
value for taxpayer money. Scholars have taken note of this phenomenon, and there is
increasing scholarship debating the role of the evaluation function within Africa’s public
services. Many have demonstrated the value that this offers emerging democracies,
speaking to the potential that evaluation offers to improve bureaucratic performance
(Engela & Ajam, 2010; Porter & Goldman, 2013). However, much of this literature
assumes that bureaucratizing the evaluation function is a linear process, and that effec-
tive evidence production through evaluative processes and systems should be sufficient
to shape bureaucratic behaviour. This notion is not in keeping with state behaviour in the
region, which sees power expressed and contested through different centres of power
both within and outside the state (de Sardan, 2014; Hoag, 2011). As a result, the develop-
ment of evaluation technical skills and expertise has not necessarily translated into an
increased use of evaluation findings (Tarsilla, 2014; Weiss, 1998).
Scholars of evaluation, ideally trained to recognize practices of power with the
programs they evaluate, risk forgetting that they are also part of a political system
(Greene, 1994; Mertens, 2001; Weiss, 1998). For this reason, parliaments are a critical
missing link in understanding the behaviour of public-sector bureaucracies in building
national evaluation systems. The political party contestation that happens within the
legislative arm of government can often explain how the ruling party ‘sets the com-
pass’ for the values systems that direct state behaviour. This article will explore parlia-
mentary practice within the oversight, representation and legislative functions in
African countries that are working to build evaluation systems into their bureaucra-
cies. This will uncover how power is contested within the state and discuss what this
means for evaluative practice.
Key literature on values and evaluation (Fulford, 2011; Greene, 2006, 2015; Hall
et al., 2012; House, 2015; House & Howe, 1999) tends to look at values from an evalu-
ator’s practice perspective. While this is an important focus, there is little evidence
demonstrating how the users of evaluations interact with values, or how values inform
evaluation systems as a whole. With an increasing focus in the evaluation sector on
national evaluation systems, it is important to understand values in evaluation not only
from the perspective of the evaluator but of all other stakeholders in an evaluation
system (Rugg, 2016; Uitto & Naidoo, 2019). This article engages in this by consider-
ing how public-sector values are reflected in parliamentary evaluative practice.
Understanding values in evaluation
While values are without doubt a central concept in the evaluation field, there are con-
testations in the ways they are defined and understood (Fulford, 2011; House, 2014).
House notes that values can be determined by the individual (personal backgrounds),
from human thought processes (cognitive processes) and interaction with people around
us (family, friends, communities), reflecting the polycentric base of the parliamentary
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