Research, monitoring, evaluation and learning - ENYC

Though the health and education sectors in Eswatini have strong monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, the same is not true of many other sectors. As a result, policymakers and programmers are often operating in an environment of incomplete or completely missing local or national evidence.

There is a multi-tier structure to address youth affairs, through the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs (MOSCYA) and ENYC. However, the multisectoral nature of programs affecting outcomes for Eswatini’s youth calls for a much stronger interministerial and sector-wide coordination and accountability mechanism. Increased funding for MOSCYA to be able to coordinate and implemented youth issues may go far in allowing MOSYA to lead the country’s youth development agenda. Development partners such as the UNDP are instrumental in helping the country achieve research and evaluation milestones. As such, the UNDP undertook an Independent Country Programme Evaluation whose main outputs included the production of research papers on fiscal consolidation, innovation and competition in the private sector, policy research and analysis through the country’s second Participatory Poverty Assessment, macro-economic forecasting, and the development of composite indicators. Output-level results also included support to the planning and monitoring of national development plans, for example through the development of an SDG-based national M&E system.