AHOA welcomes this timely and candid article. It argues that evaluation is shaped as much by market incentives as by methods and theory, and that a field built on accountability-driven demand will struggle to stay relevant as aid gives way to investment-led models. This matches what we see from the Global Majority side. AHOA has worked since 1995 as a civil society network, now spanning 100+ countries, with UN ECOSOC consultative status. We have received evaluation demands set elsewhere, and we have also produced evidence for decisions on our own terms. We offer our reflections from that vantage point.
Where AHOA agrees
Accountability-driven demand narrows learning. Our experience supports this. Much of the evaluation done in our contexts, including Global Fund-financed HIV and TB work, serves donor reporting first. AHOA's own oversight work in Nigeria, such as monitoring Global Fund projects for the CCM, showed us how little of that evidence returns to communities or local decision-makers in usable form.
Tied aid and concentrated buyers constrain local capacity. Small and mid-sized Global South evaluation providers face the reputational catch-22 the authors describe: no major-donor experience, so no contracts, so no experience. We agree that procurement and accreditation reform is the most practical lever.
Intermediaries must change roles. Proposition 6 resonates with how AHOA positions itself. We act as a convener and network, and also as a direct implementer. Our strategy rests on partnerships, advocacy, research, capacity development, outreach, and monitoring and evaluation (PARCOM). Evaluation is built into the programme cycle and is not an external audit bolted on at the end.
What AHOA would add
1. Civil society is a market actor and an evidence producer, not only a client. The article names philanthropy, social enterprise and impact investors as the innovators outside the mainstream. It says little about civil society networks and community organisations, which generate much of the real-time, context-rich evidence in low-resource settings. Our Sustainable Citizen Participation work in the Niger Delta, the Nigeria Malaria Matchbox projects and the Life & Health Dialogue Series all produce community-grounded evidence and communiqués with specific resolutions. These are rarely counted as part of the "evaluation market" because they sit outside formal commissioning.
2. Speed and voice can be organised collectively. The authors ask why evaluators could not respond within days to the USAID disbanding. Networks can. AHOA's African Civil Society Statement and Clarion Call to COP31, issued in August 2026 from our 31st Life & Health Dialogue Session, gathered 373 endorsements from 29 countries within weeks. It is not a formal evaluation. It shows that a distributed network can convert shared evidence into a unified, politically aware position quickly, which is exactly the capability Proposition 1 calls for.
3. Politically astute evaluation needs structured pathways, not individual heroics. We support the call to train evaluators to read power and advocate for evidence. In practice this needs institutional mechanisms: observer and accredited status in UN processes (UNEA, the plastics INC, the chemicals and wastes OEWG, UNOG), delegation to COP-type forums, and standing technical working groups. A civil society evaluator who can brief negotiators directly has influence that a report on a shelf does not.
4. Localisation must include evaluation ownership, not only programme delivery. Proposition 4 is right that Global Majority evaluation markets are underdeveloped. We would go further. Governments and funders should commission locally led evaluation by default, with domestic public-sector budgets for evaluation, and not only subcontract local firms under international prime contractors. Nigeria's health, malaria and HIV systems already generate large demand for M&E, for example national M&E plans and costing work. That demand should be met by qualified Nigerian and African professionals, with international partners in supporting roles.
5. Evaluating in fragile and displaced-population contexts. The article focuses on the "polycrisis" in general terms. Refugees and displaced persons are among its most acute expressions, and standard OECD-DAC framing and short contract cycles fit them poorly. Through the African Refugee Council (ARC) and AHOA’s Pan-African Refugee and Displaced Persons Integration and Support Programme (PRISP), we see the need for participatory, rights-based and rapid-feedback evaluation approaches that include displaced people as evidence holders, not only as subjects.
6. AI and indigenous knowledge belong in the rewiring. The authors mention AI and foresight only briefly, as capabilities the field lacks. AHOA's position is that artificial intelligence must serve equity, justice and sustainable development, not replace human dignity. For the evaluation market this means three things:
investing in AI-enabled MEL tools that Global Majority practitioners can access and govern;
building data-protection and safeguarding standards into those tools; and
pairing them with indigenous and community knowledge, so automation does not deepen the extraction the authors warn about.
Response to the six propositions
Proposition
AHOA response
1. Politically astute presence
Strongly support. Build advocacy and political-analysis skills into evaluator training, and use accredited civil society platforms to carry evidence into decision forums.
2. Integrated, diverse market
Support. Include civil society networks and community-based evidence producers alongside private sector, social enterprise and impact investors.
3. New geographic alliances
Support. Alliances with African, Asian and Gulf actors should be built on partnership terms agreed up front, so Global Majority evaluators are co-designers and not only data collectors.
4. Regional and local markets
Strongly support. Priorities are procurement reform, domestic evaluation budgets, and support for small and mid-sized African firms and CSOs.
5. Mergers, coalitions, new combinations
Support. Coalitions of evaluators, civil society networks, and health and climate specialists would respond more flexibly than any single firm. Management consultancies should be engaged as partners without being allowed to dominate regional markets.
6. Reconfigured intermediaries
Strongly support. Funders should set clear transition plans for Global North intermediaries, including direct funding windows for Global Majority networks.
Respectful critique
The evidence base is thin, as the authors acknowledge. The argument rests on experience and a small body of literature, so it calls for empirical follow-up. We would welcome studies of the evaluation market in Africa specifically, covering who commissions, who is contracted, at what price, and with what use of findings.
Global South critique is acknowledged but set aside. Decolonial, feminist and Global South perspectives are noted and not explored. In an article about rebalancing power, these should be central rather than peripheral.
Investment-model risks deserve more attention. The authors rightly flag the tension between market returns and the protection of the poorest. For health and climate adaptation, where returns are low and need is high, evaluation must explicitly track who is left out.
Closing call
The question the authors pose, whether evaluation can change fast enough, is one the Global Majority is already answering through networks, coalitions and locally led evidence work. AHOA invites the authors, the evaluation associations and funders to treat African civil society networks as partners in rewiring the marketplace. Concretely, we propose:
joint market-mapping studies of evaluation demand in African health and climate sectors;
pilot procurement windows reserved for local and regional evaluators; and
a convening in which Global Majority networks, evaluation associations and funders co-design the next phase of this agenda.
RE: Evaluation under pressure : Strengthening evidence use, accountability and learning amidst funding constraints (Joint EvalforEarth-ALNAP discussion)
Nigeria
Dr. Uzodinma Akujekwe Adirieje
CEO
Afrihealth Optonet Association (AHOA) - CSOs Network
Posted on 25/10/2026
AHOA Response to "Rewiring the Evaluation Marketplace for a Changing World" (MacPherson, Kelly & Kumar, JMDE 22(53), 2026)
-by Dr. Uzodinma Akujekwe Adirieje;
CEO/Programmes Director, Afrihealth Optonet Association (AHOA)
📞 🟢 +234 803 472 5905 | ✉️ afrepton@gmail.com| 🌐 https://www.afrihealthcsos.org
AHOA welcomes this timely and candid article. It argues that evaluation is shaped as much by market incentives as by methods and theory, and that a field built on accountability-driven demand will struggle to stay relevant as aid gives way to investment-led models. This matches what we see from the Global Majority side. AHOA has worked since 1995 as a civil society network, now spanning 100+ countries, with UN ECOSOC consultative status. We have received evaluation demands set elsewhere, and we have also produced evidence for decisions on our own terms. We offer our reflections from that vantage point.
Where AHOA agrees
Accountability-driven demand narrows learning. Our experience supports this. Much of the evaluation done in our contexts, including Global Fund-financed HIV and TB work, serves donor reporting first. AHOA's own oversight work in Nigeria, such as monitoring Global Fund projects for the CCM, showed us how little of that evidence returns to communities or local decision-makers in usable form.
Tied aid and concentrated buyers constrain local capacity. Small and mid-sized Global South evaluation providers face the reputational catch-22 the authors describe: no major-donor experience, so no contracts, so no experience. We agree that procurement and accreditation reform is the most practical lever.
Intermediaries must change roles. Proposition 6 resonates with how AHOA positions itself. We act as a convener and network, and also as a direct implementer. Our strategy rests on partnerships, advocacy, research, capacity development, outreach, and monitoring and evaluation (PARCOM). Evaluation is built into the programme cycle and is not an external audit bolted on at the end.
What AHOA would add
1. Civil society is a market actor and an evidence producer, not only a client.
The article names philanthropy, social enterprise and impact investors as the innovators outside the mainstream. It says little about civil society networks and community organisations, which generate much of the real-time, context-rich evidence in low-resource settings. Our Sustainable Citizen Participation work in the Niger Delta, the Nigeria Malaria Matchbox projects and the Life & Health Dialogue Series all produce community-grounded evidence and communiqués with specific resolutions. These are rarely counted as part of the "evaluation market" because they sit outside formal commissioning.
2. Speed and voice can be organised collectively.
The authors ask why evaluators could not respond within days to the USAID disbanding. Networks can. AHOA's African Civil Society Statement and Clarion Call to COP31, issued in August 2026 from our 31st Life & Health Dialogue Session, gathered 373 endorsements from 29 countries within weeks. It is not a formal evaluation. It shows that a distributed network can convert shared evidence into a unified, politically aware position quickly, which is exactly the capability Proposition 1 calls for.
3. Politically astute evaluation needs structured pathways, not individual heroics.
We support the call to train evaluators to read power and advocate for evidence. In practice this needs institutional mechanisms: observer and accredited status in UN processes (UNEA, the plastics INC, the chemicals and wastes OEWG, UNOG), delegation to COP-type forums, and standing technical working groups. A civil society evaluator who can brief negotiators directly has influence that a report on a shelf does not.
4. Localisation must include evaluation ownership, not only programme delivery.
Proposition 4 is right that Global Majority evaluation markets are underdeveloped. We would go further. Governments and funders should commission locally led evaluation by default, with domestic public-sector budgets for evaluation, and not only subcontract local firms under international prime contractors. Nigeria's health, malaria and HIV systems already generate large demand for M&E, for example national M&E plans and costing work. That demand should be met by qualified Nigerian and African professionals, with international partners in supporting roles.
5. Evaluating in fragile and displaced-population contexts.
The article focuses on the "polycrisis" in general terms. Refugees and displaced persons are among its most acute expressions, and standard OECD-DAC framing and short contract cycles fit them poorly. Through the African Refugee Council (ARC) and AHOA’s Pan-African Refugee and Displaced Persons Integration and Support Programme (PRISP), we see the need for participatory, rights-based and rapid-feedback evaluation approaches that include displaced people as evidence holders, not only as subjects.
6. AI and indigenous knowledge belong in the rewiring.
The authors mention AI and foresight only briefly, as capabilities the field lacks. AHOA's position is that artificial intelligence must serve equity, justice and sustainable development, not replace human dignity. For the evaluation market this means three things:
Response to the six propositions
Proposition
AHOA response
1. Politically astute presence
Strongly support. Build advocacy and political-analysis skills into evaluator training, and use accredited civil society platforms to carry evidence into decision forums.
2. Integrated, diverse market
Support. Include civil society networks and community-based evidence producers alongside private sector, social enterprise and impact investors.
3. New geographic alliances
Support. Alliances with African, Asian and Gulf actors should be built on partnership terms agreed up front, so Global Majority evaluators are co-designers and not only data collectors.
4. Regional and local markets
Strongly support. Priorities are procurement reform, domestic evaluation budgets, and support for small and mid-sized African firms and CSOs.
5. Mergers, coalitions, new combinations
Support. Coalitions of evaluators, civil society networks, and health and climate specialists would respond more flexibly than any single firm. Management consultancies should be engaged as partners without being allowed to dominate regional markets.
6. Reconfigured intermediaries
Strongly support. Funders should set clear transition plans for Global North intermediaries, including direct funding windows for Global Majority networks.
Respectful critique
Closing call
The question the authors pose, whether evaluation can change fast enough, is one the Global Majority is already answering through networks, coalitions and locally led evidence work. AHOA invites the authors, the evaluation associations and funders to treat African civil society networks as partners in rewiring the marketplace. Concretely, we propose: