The programme is unique in both its focus on the application of high-level technical skills together with the development of the personal skills needed to design, lead and implement today’s increasingly complex M&E projects.
Kantar Public secured investment from Kantar to launch this programme, enabling it to be wholly subsidised for participants. The inaugural course - held in Nairobi, Kenya- combines best international practice, international and local expert-led interactive classroom sessions with practical ‘hands-on’ design and implementation and dissemination of a ‘real’ evaluation project with a local client. Faculty includes senior from Kantar researchers from Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK and US as well as esteemed guest speakers: Jerusha Govender, Founder and Managing Director of South-African based Data Innovator, and Adeline Sibanda, President of the Africa Evaluation Association (AfrEA), who presented AfrEA’s ‘Made in Africa’ initiative.
A representative of Africa Action Help International said of the programme that “this is a golden opportunity for emerging evaluators that will have a ripple effect throughout the M&E community in Kenya.”
In the first week, attendees engaged in seminars with practical exercises on the role of M&E in the program cycle, recent trends in M&E, evaluator principles, standards, ethics and competencies, and hands-on work with logic models, evaluation questions, indicators and frameworks. At the end of the programme, they will receive certification from Kisii University in Kenya.
Programme attendees are also supported to spend 5 days in the field, conducting quantitative and qualitative data research on projects. In Nairobi, the participants teamed into five groups to design, implement, analyse and report on evaluations such as initiatives aiming to improve livelihoods for small business owners, initiatives to increase access to and utilization of healthcare, and project working to reduce the use of plastic bags.
The participants, who are early career M&E professionals from Kenya, Zambia and Egypt, represent a broad range of donor organisations and local and international NGOs. Mwazilinda from Zambia said of the programme that “I work as part of a legal fraternity with juveniles who are incarcerated; it’s hard to assess the effectiveness of our work. With this programme, I can go back into the M&E department and have a better understanding of the effectiveness of our work and our impact”.
Abeer from Egypt who works in London said, “this course is unique because of the field work it offers. It will strengthen my M&E skills and I will be more rigorous after this programme, too”.
Melissa Baker, CEO, Kantar Public Division Africa said: “the programme is designed to enable participants to gain a comprehensive understanding and practical experience of all the disciplines required for successful evaluations and to develop the personal confidence and professional skills required to lead evaluation teams.”
She added that the programme was developed in consultation with locally-based international development clients and partners, to bring together the outlooks and perspectives of both the development and the research communities, to the benefit of both.
“Kantar has been investing in research and evaluation in Africa since 1972 through their own operations across the continent, and this programme was developed on recognising the need to build and invest in local practitioners and develop their evaluation expertise.”