AfrEA Conference 2024 – Reflections Day 3 – 20 March 2024

On Wednesday, 20 March 2024, the main Conference opened its doors and brought together over 650 registered participants far exceeding our expectation of a maximum 500 participants. So far, in the History of AfrEA, this is touted as the most well-attended conference. The welcome plenary was hosted jointly by AfrEA and the Rwanda Monitoring and Evaluation Organisation (RMEO). The key speakers included: the AfrEA President, Rosetti Nabbumba Nayenga; the RMEO President, Eugene Nyirigira Gatari; and a representative of the Rwanda Minister for Finance. The Special Address was delivered by Dr. Omotade Akin – Aina, the Chief, Impact and Research Officer at the Mastercard Foundation, which was the Platinum Sponsor for the Conference. The session was chaired by AfrEA President, Madam Rosetti Nabbumba Nayenga; while the Master-of-the-Ceremony was the ever-smiling President of the Uganda Evaluation Association (UEA), Matthew Lubuulwa.

After the Opening Plenary, we had the first of the three Presidential Strands. This was hosted by AfrEA, under the theme: “Technology and Innovation in Evaluation Practice in Africa.” The Main speakers at this session included the Director of the Independent Evaluation Office at UNFPA, Marco Segone, the Director of Innovation and Impact Labs at the Mastercard Foundation, Antonio Capillo; and the EvalIndigenous Global Network Co-Chair, Eric Serge Yakeu-Djiam. The Session was Chaired by the AfrEA Treasurer, Mr. Isaac Meshili Kiwango. Each of the Speakers highlighted the role their respective organisations was playing in ensuring that they adjust to the present realities of information technology and artificial intelligence and how this was going to revolutionise evaluation practice globally.

Thereafter, the participants broke out for lunch and then to separate concurrent break-out sessions till the end of the day. A Welcome Reception was organised for the Participants at the end of Day 3, during which time, the participants also had a chance to go through the posters on presentation and engage with the Authors of the Posters. On this third day of the conference, I was a Presenter in a Strand 2 Session under the Sub-Theme: “Artificial Intelligence and Evaluation; Are we Experiencing a Revolution on How We Evaluate?” This session was Chaired by Dr. Diliah Abigail Mutambara.

My presentation was under the title: “Is innovation the Last Nail on the Coffin of Participatory Approaches in Africa?” and was addressing the main theme of the conference. My presentation looked at the significance of participatory and collaborative approaches; diagnosed whether we have participation and collaboration with artificial intelligence and realised that there are several open-source AI frameworks that enable global collaboration on AI model development. I then looked at the opportunities and potential risks that come with artificial intelligence. Ultimately, I came to the verdict that technology and AI are not the last nail in the coffin of participatory approaches to evaluation and research; and that participatory approaches are here with us to stay. The conclusion was that the best approach is likely complementarity, thereby integrating participatory and AI methods to leverage the strengths of each, while mitigating the weaknesses.

Other presenters during this session were: Janvier Mwitirehe: “MEL Data Ecosystem for Drinking Water Using Machine Learning Tools”; Ebua Jarvis Ebua: “Artificial Intelligence – Human Collaboration in Responsible Monitoring and Evaluation Strategies”;  Zach Tilton, the Tech-enabled Evaluation Specialist with the MERL Tech Initiative made a presentation on: “Made in Africa AI-enabled Evaluation Practice: Lessons from the MERL Tech NLP CoP”;  Fila Mathew: “Artificial intelligence: a blessing or threat to data privacy”; and Chineme Anowai, a Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Expert from the Preston Associates in Nigeria on: “The Role of Big Data and AI in Evaluation Practice in Africa”.

My key takeaway for Day 3 is drawn from the speech by the Chief Guest, Dr. Omotade Akin – Aina, in which he stressed on the role of the Mastercard Foundation in their strategy of using youth employment as a key measure of socio-economic progress and aiming to help millions of people to find a pathway out of poverty. As part of the Young Africa Works strategy, their long-term plan for each country of focus is: to improve the quality of education and vocational training so that they equip young people with the skills employers need; leverage technology to connect employers and job seekers, and drive growth; and enable entrepreneurs and small businesses to expand through access to financial services. This message reverberated with the mood of the Young and Emerging Evaluators (YEEs) attending the conference.