Strengthening Managing for Impact in Eastern and Southern Africa : Grant Completion Report

The Strengthening Managing for Impact Programme (SMIP) was a pilot initiative established to test the extent to which the use of the Managing for Impact (M4I) approach could enhance the impact of pro-poor interventions for greater development effectiveness. This programme was implemented in the Eastern and Southern Africa region (including French speaking countries) from 2006 till the end of 2009 and was largely funded by IFAD. A partnership was developed between Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation (formerly part of Wageningen International), Khanya6aicdd, IFPRI6IKCD (formerly IFPRI/ISNAR) and Haramaya University (in a joint partnership ‘Carmpolea’); and the Impact Alliance

Beyond outputs: pathways to symmetrical evaluations of university sustainable development partnerships

As the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) draws to a close, it is timely to review ways in which the sustainable development initiatives of higher education institutions have been, and can be, evaluated. In their efforts to document and assess collaborative sustainable development program outcomes and impacts, universities in the North and South are challenged by similar conundrums that confront development agencies. This article explores pathways to symmetrical evaluations of transnationally partnered research, curricula, and public-outreach initiatives specifically devoted to sustainable development. Drawing on extensive literature and informed by international development experience, the authors present a novel framework for evaluating transnational higher education partnerships devoted to sustainable development that addresses design, management, capacity building, and institutional outreach. The framework is applied by assessing several full-term African higher education evaluation case studies with a view toward identifying key limitations and suggesting useful future symmetrical evaluation pathways. University participants in transnational sustainable development initiatives, and their supporting donors, would be well-served by utilizing an inclusive evaluation framework that is infused with principles of symmetry