The UEA

Please visit the UEA homepage for more information about the Association and membership requirements.

 

Collaboration with ECD

The UEA was registered in 2002 as a national chapter of the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) to promote the practice, use, quality and ethics of monitoring and evaluation in Uganda’s development process. Promoting professionalism in evaluation by defining standards and guidelines to evaluation practice was a core objective of UEA, and the ECD Project supports the association in reaching this goal. Through its cooperation the project played a catalytic role in strengthening the UEA capacity and its functioning as a professional association more generally. While the primary outcome from the engagement is a set of standards, the process through which the standards were produced also generated secondary outcomes including: a stronger UEA from an institutional and professional perspective; a more energized community of evaluators and functional networks between UEA, Government agencies, civil society organizations (CSOs) and the private sector.

On 25 Nov 2013, the UEA presented the first version of the Ugandan Evaluation Standards to the community of professional evaluators in Uganda and the public. Representatives from government organisations, civil society and academia participated in the event. The standards were launched by the Hon. Minister for General duties in the presence of the UEA President and the GIZ Country Director.

In the course of the engagement with UEA, ECD expanded the cooperation beyond the preparation of standards. Since the beginning of engagement, capacity building measures included the mobilisation of members for joint activities, organising joint trainings, providing advice on how to streamline its operations and address issues of governance. For example, during his visit to Uganda in December 2012 the UK Evaluation Society president held a meeting with the UEA. Discussions centred on comparative experience of the UKES and implications for capacity development and the promotion of professionalism. The meeting concluded that in view of the importance of evaluation and the need to develop capacity the UEA should take a more inclusive approach to membership.

In November 2013, the ECD project was able to document an increased and diversified membership since the beginning of ECD’s engagement with UEA. Membership saw a rapid increase during 2013 and now includes more than 200 members. The majority of members come from government institutions (41%), while the remaining 59% of UEA members are from a variety of non-governmental institutions (NGOs, CSOs, private sector organisations and academic institutions). A trend was observed that representatives of other target groups of the ECD project (MDAs, CSOs, Parliament) are increasingly taking part in UEA activities and signing up as members. This reflects ECD and UEA’s joint effort to promote the association as a professional sharing platform for evaluation practitioners.

In 2014, joint activities are designed to further consolidate and sustain this positive institutional development and, additionally, build individual capacities of UEA members. Especially the promotion and use of the standards will be focused upon. The UEA will organise trainings for its members and play a major role in the upcoming Evaluation Week (May 2014).