Abstract
The demand for governments and their public sector institutions to improve their performance and demonstrate
concrete results as expected by their diverse stakeholders has been increasing. The legislatures as important
institutions of democracy are expected to also confront and address this increasing demand in order to improve
their performance as they fulfil their constitutional mandate. In the course of programme monitoring and evaluation,
the institutionalisation of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems is one of the strategies that governments in
general and public sector institutions in particular seek to employ not only to improve performance but also to
strengthen accountability and transparency and to promote good governance.
Despite the strategic importance of M&E, there seems to be paucity of information about the nature and extent of
institutionalisation of M&E at the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature (MPL). In this context, it has not been
established whether the current M&E efforts at the MPL are in line with international good practice because no
study was ever undertaken in this regard. The overarching objective of this study was to gain insights and
understanding about institutionalisation of evaluation at the MPL in relation to what constitutes international good
practices.
The study has articulated and employed both the pragmatist and interpretive perspectives which have informed the
mixed method research (MMR) design that has been employed in this investigation. Mainly an open-ended
interview and closed–ended questionnaire were used to collect both the qualitative and quantitative data in order to
answer the research questions and achieve the overarching objective of the study. The findings revealed that the
MPL has essential good practice features which constitute the building blocks for cultivating and legitimising M&E
practice at the legislature. However, the MPL has implemented limited M&E institutionalising components in terms
of what constitutes good practice which has rendered its M&E system to be fairly functional but partially
institutionalised.
The insights and understanding gained through the findings were then used to articulate ten recommendations in
order to advance the institutionalisation of M&E system at the MPL in line with the overarching research objective of
this study. The study focused only on the MPL rather than on a sample of legislatures in South Africa.
Consequently, this study cannot justifiably make broad generalisations involving the entire South African legislative
sector. It is in this context that individual legislatures or interested institutions or people, are expected to carefully
approach the findings and recommendations in this study in tandem with their unique institutional contexts. There is
certainly a need for building and institutionalising a results-based and evidence-informed M&E systems because...
M.A. (Public Management and Governance)