Abstract
The Made in Africa Evaluation (MAE) movement calls for decolonising evaluation practice through methodologies rooted in African epistemologies, cultural values, and governance systems. Yet, the professional development of Emerging Evaluators (EEs) across the continent is influenced mainly by Western-centric frameworks prioritising donor-driven criteria and standardised tools. This study critically examines how African-rooted evaluation approaches can be embedded into EE capacity-building initiatives, using the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA) Emerging Evaluators Initiative as a case study. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with EEs and mentors, document analysis, and insights from regional evaluation conferences, the study identifies key structural gaps in existing EE training pathways, particularly the absence of formal mechanisms to institutionalise MAE. The research was conducted in South Africa between July 2024 and February 2025 and involved 15 Emerging Evaluators and 8 mentors from across the government, NGO, consultancy, and academic sectors. Semi-structured interviews explored their exposure to MAE, mentorship experiences, institutional barriers, and perspectives on curriculum reform, and the data were thematically analysed using NVivo. The findings reveal that while mentorship, internships, and professional networks offer strategic platforms for nurturing new evaluators, these opportunities often reinforce global evaluation standards at the expense of African knowledge systems. The study proposes a framework for embedding MAE within EE programs by reforming mentorship models, reconfiguring internship placements, and establishing MAE-focused training materials and policy mandates. The study argues that capacity-building programs can serve as critical vehicles for epistemic transformation in the evaluation field by shifting from incidental exposure to systematic integration. This research contributes to the localisation and professionalisation of African-rooted evaluation practice and calls for evaluation associations, policymakers, and training institutions to institutionalise MAE as a core competency in developing Africa’s next generation of evaluators.