Evaluator Competencies

The South African Monitoring & Evaluation Association (SAMEA) is a voluntary organisation of professional evaluation that promotes monitoring and evaluation as an important discipline and instrument for equitable and sustainable development in South Africa and beyond.

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M&E competencies refer to the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours practitioners and managers need for conducting and managing quality evaluations.

Evaluator competency frameworks assist voluntary organisations of professional evaluation (VOPEs) like SAMEA in strengthening their professionalisation efforts by:

  • Improving professional accountability,

  • Improving ethical practice

  • Providing guidance for self-assessment as a first step towards relevant professional development and

  • Providing guidance to training providers.

Between 2016 and 2020, SAMEA undertook a participatory process of developing and refining an evaluation competency framework, through the PhD work of Rhoda Goremucheche and her supervisor, Dr Lauren Wildschut, a SAMEA Legacy Chair. The full competency framework is available here.

The SAMEA Evaluation Competency Framework has five interrelated competency domains:

1) Professional Practice
2) Technical Practice
3) Context – global, national, local and organisational
4) Managing an Evaluation
5) Interpersonal

Professional Practices
The knowledge and skills(values and practices) evaluators need to be reflective; practice evaluation in line with guidelines and ethical codes relevant to their context and pursue continuous professional development. Number of competencies: 8
Technical Practice
The knowledge and skills evaluators need to conduct systematic inquiry during and evaluation. Number of competencies: 20
Context
The knowledge and skills evaluators need to understand the circumstances and settings of evaluations and their stakeholders at various levels of the evaluation context. Number of competencies: 10
Managing an Evaluation
Project management skills evaluators needed to effectively negotiate, scope, manage and complete an evaluation. Number of competencies: 8
Interpersonal
The knowledge, skills and attitude evaluators need in order to effectively engage and communicate with stakeholders taking into considerations their culture and diversity. Number of competencies: 8
  • Professional Practices
    Number of competencies: 8
    The knowledge and skills(values and practices) evaluators need to be reflective; practice evaluation in line with guidelines and ethical codes relevant to their context and pursue continuous professional development.
  • Technical Practice
    Number of competencies: 20
    The knowledge and skills evaluators need to conduct systematic inquiry during and evaluation.
  • Context
    Number of competencies: 10
    The knowledge and skills evaluators need to understand the circumstances and settings of evaluations and their stakeholders at various levels of the evaluation context.

  • Managing an Evaluation
    Number of competencies: 8
    Project management skills evaluators needed to effectively negotiate, scope, manage and complete an evaluation.

  • Interpersonal
    Number of competencies: 8
    The knowledge, skills and attitude evaluators need in order to effectively engage and communicate with stakeholders taking into considerations their culture and diversity.

In 2024, through funding from the Zenex Foundation, SAMEA partnered with LEARN Evaluation to put the SAMEA evaluator competencies onto an online self-assessment tool.

Complete the assessment and receive a free report that outlines your strengths, limitations and learning needs as an evaluator.

This Competency Framework and assessment tool has potential to:

  • Provide evaluators with a tool for self-reflection for professional development;

  • Assist training providers in capacity development planning;

  • Guide commissioners of evaluations on the required and ideal competencies when developing Terms of Reference (TORs) or Request for Proposals (RFPs) and appointing external evaluators for assignments;

  • Provide organisations with guidance when designing jobs or crafting job descriptions when recruiting internal expertise.