The University for Development Studies, UDS,  and the Mastercard Foundation have organised a one-day  workshop  on the Tamale Campus. The workshop, which came off on 17th January, 2024 was also used to launch a research project aimed at promoting indigenous evaluation of projects in Africa.

In welcoming participants to the workshop, prof. Mamudu A. Akudugu, the project lead stated that the purpose of the workshop and the projects are to measure outcomes of projects as well as to discuss and brainstorm on how to use different concepts such as story telling to tell the African story. He stresses on the need to co-create ways to carry out projects in an African and other indigenous way. He also introduced some consortium partners for the project.

The Vice-chancellor, Prof Seidu Al-hassan, who chaired the opening session, was delighted that the project had kicked-off on a positive note, adding that the community-based approach and methodology of teaching at UDS has indigeneity embedded in it. “In my opinion, we need to prove African Indigenous knowledge that can be owned by Africans with the ability to generalize its outcomes in a more scientific way”, he said.

The vice chancellor intimated that the multidisciplinary approach and the involvement of international team members is an added advantage coupled with the vast experience of the team members and the support from the Mastercard Foundation. “These are opportunities the team can lean on for a successful project”, he stressed.

Prof. Al-hassan gave hints about some of the possible challenges that may come up against the team in the course of their work. He said Africa is blessed with a wide spectrum of knowledge generated indigenously. Unfortunately, indigenous knowledge has not yet been harnessed to the advantage of the African continent. This, he said, must be carefully pieced together under the project. He also mentioned that another possible challenge is the acceptability and buy-in of outcomes of the study due to the dominance of Eurocentric approaches to indigenous studies.

The Vice-Chancellor shed some light on the theme for the UDS 2023/2024 academic year, which is "Accelerated University Development Through Proactiveness and Coordination,". He admonished members of the of the university community to endeavour to align their efforts with the theme to achieve the University's goals.

Mr. Hardi Shahadu, the team lead of the Design phase and a member of the UDS team explained the objectives of the project.  He explained that the project is divided into three phases; landscaping phase, design phase and pilot phase. The landscaping phase he said, involves the scope of indigenous knowledge, decolonization and evaluation of literature. The design phase involves developing proof of concepts and tools, while the pilot phase involves piloting the project in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. He hinted that one key goal of the project is to develop a curriculum out of the project to teach students at the various universities.

Prof. David Miller of the Miller Institute for Transdisciplinary and Development Studies (MITDS), one of the consortium partners of UDS, discussed the indigenous approaches to monitoring, evaluation & learning (MEL) as well as the rational of the projects. Bringing his experience and knowledge on indigenous studies to bare, Prof. Miller teased out some of the intricacies of indigenous knowledge learning. “For me what is missing is the learning aspect of the monitoring, evaluation & learning”, he said.

Dr. Fadillah Mohammed, a team member of UDS also led a session on gender and youth dimension of the projects and need to look at cross-cutting issues of inclusion.
Leading a session on decolonization approaches in Africa, prof. Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno said his interest was piqued by the approach of the project by Mastercard Foundation. According to him, most institutions particularly, those from the West do not consider the voices of the people in their interventions. He applauded Mastercard which is headquartered in Canada, and appealed to them to continue with the good initiative as it serves to challenge the narratives about indigenous people and de-link Africa from colonialism in terms of approaches. He used the opportunity to challenge African scholars to indigenize their work by using the bottom-up approach and by involving a lot more people at the grassroots level.

The workshop served as a platform for brainstorming and sharing ideas on how to design the proof of concept on indigenous evaluation in Africa.

Among those present were Prof. Elliot Haruna Alhassan, the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the university for development studies and the Acting Director of Procurement Mr. Safianu Mahama. Others who participated virtually included international team members. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Ishmeal Ayanoore a co-lead of the project.

Background to the Workshop

The University for Development Studies (UDS) signed a contract with Mastercard Foundation to form and lead a multi-disciplinary consortium to develop a proof of concept for Indigenous Evaluation in Africa. Four organization have been put together by UDS to provide this service: The Miller Institute for Transdisciplinary and Development Studies (MITDS) in Ghana, the Centre for Evaluation and Development (CAED) in Cameroon, OKT-Consult in Mauritania and the Africa Consultants International (ACI) in Senegal. The outcome of the project is expected to represent the Western, Central and parts of Northern Africa.

Story by; Sumaila Mohammed and Abdul Hakim Dokurugu 
(UDS Media)