Abstract

Policy evaluation is vital for enhancing efficiency, effectiveness, and equity in public policymaking and governance performance. Policy evaluation has continued to gain traction among national governments in Africa. Many countries increasingly include monitoring and evaluation systems to measure performance, assess the impact, and draw lessons for future programmes and projects. These developments have taken several forms and have been informed by multiple factors. What is policy evaluation? What are the predominant types of policy evaluation gaining traction in Africa? What factors account for the increasing adoption of policy evaluation among national governments? What has been the impact of the introduction of national policy evaluation systems? What lessons have been learnt, and how can evaluation systems be made more effective and efficient. This chapter responds to these questions.