Since April 2016, Benin has a new government that places governance and accountability in the heart of action; the evaluation function is now in the Presidency, under the Minister of State, General Secretary of the Presidency. Twende Mbele’s main operational partner is the Bureau of public policy evaluation and government action analysis (BEPPAAG);

The role of the BEPPAAG has been extended to include the monitoring of public action by setting transversal performance indicator for each department and domain of public action;

With the support of UNICEF, Benin has developed and adopted an evaluation guideline since which presents the standards for evaluation in Benin. The guideline has been presented to community of evaluation practitioners during the Benin Evaluation Week, held in September 5th to 7th 2016, where it received positive responses.

In terms of future work to strengthen the National Evaluation System, the current Government of Benin is interested to review the constitution – at the Benin Evaluation Week, many of the participants recommendeda change to the constitution to include. In addition, within the framework of strengthening the institutionalization of evaluation in Benin, with the financial support of UNICEF, Benin government has initiated the preparation of a draft law on the evaluation of public policies. There is also a support from the parliament for the ongoing process of elaboration of evaluation bill in Benin

The Government-Wide Monitoring and Evaluation (GWME) programme was approved by Cabinet in 2005. To effect the vision of the work enshrined in the GWME the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation was established in 2011. The Department got underway to institutionalise a national monitoring and evaluation policy.

With the aid of a study tour to Canada, South Africa implemented its very first national monitoring and evaluation policy, the Management Performance Assessment Tool (MPAT). The Department changed its name to the Department for Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME). The focus of the changed Department incorporated the planning of programmes, with emphasis on the requirements for programmes to be approved, having to go through a theory of change and a clear project plan. The DPME has since sought to facilitate, influence and support effective planning, monitoring and evaluation of government programmes aimed at improving governm

The history of the national Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system is rooted from the Uganda’s Public Sector Management during the post-colonial era system of governance through 1980s that shaped the public inspectorate function with public bureaus in various institutional levels. The Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps), liberalisation and divestiture of most of the public parastatals in the late 1990s, paved the way for increased monitoring of performance of government programmes (e.g. the Local Government Development Programme (LGDP) and the Public Sector Reform Programme (PSRP).

M&E processes with a gender equity and equality focus were mostly driven by Development Partners. Public sector Reforms focused on key aspects including value for money, performance measurement and “results-based performance”. With the adoption of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), there was a push mostly from civil society organizations (CSOs), both national and international, for ‘impact assessments’ of PEAP interventions.

In the strengthening of capacity around evaluations, Ghana has taken it upon itself to strengthen its M&E capacity through the establishment of two new ministries: The Ministry of Planning, and the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation. The establishment of these ministries have assisted in the tightening of regulation and development of capacity around M&E. The M&E system is driven from the planning system, where the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) is the apex body responsible for planning and M&E.

The NDPC was established based on the 1992 Constitution, a National Development Planning Commission Act of 1994 (Act 479) and the National Development Planning Systems Act of 1994 (Act 480). Local government’s role is established through different acts ranging from 1993 to 2003 which regulate the decentralised planning system, including district planning authorities at the district level, and regional coordinating councils (RCCs) at regional level. Act 480 provides the basis for planning and M&E guidelines at district and sector levels., district and sector progress reports, the National M&E Plan, Citizen Assessment Reports and National Annual Progress Reports.