Dr Michael Oludare Ale, a development evaluation expert, has called on Nigeria to strengthen its national evaluation capacity and ensure that evidence generated through public policies and development programmes is owned, protected and utilised by Nigerian institutions and citizens.
Ale made the call in his keynote address titled “Who Owns the Evidence? Strengthening National Evaluation Capacity, Ownership and Accountability for Sustainable Development,” delivered at an event organised by the Nigerian Association of Evaluators (NAE) on Monday, November 2, 2026.
He described evidence as a national asset, arguing that its ownership should not be restricted to government agencies, development partners or consultants who finance and conduct evaluations, but should ultimately benefit citizens whose lives public policies are designed to improve.
According to him, evaluation must move beyond being treated as a project management activity and become an integral part of Nigeria’s governance, investment decisions, institutional learning, reforms and accountability mechanisms.
Ale observed that Nigeria was not short of policies, development strategies, plans and reports, but expressed concern that the country had yet to establish a strong culture of evidence ownership and utilisation.
He questioned how frequently ineffective government programmes were discontinued based on evaluation findings and how easily citizens could trace public expenditure to measurable improvements in their lives.
He said the major challenge was not the absence of evidence but the weakness of the national system for demanding, producing, validating, protecting, sharing and consistently applying it.
The evaluator explained that national ownership of evidence required the development of local capacity, professional competence, appropriate institutional frameworks, sustainable financing and reliable data infrastructure.
He identified five critical components of national evidence ownership, including setting evaluation priorities based on Nigeria’s development needs, investing in Nigerian evaluators and researchers, building data and knowledge infrastructure, ensuring that evaluation findings influence policy decisions and recognising citizens as the ultimate beneficiaries and owners of evidence.
Ale also identified five major institutions that must work together to strengthen Nigeria’s evaluation and accountability system.
They include the Legislature, Executive, Supreme Audit Institution, National Evaluation System and citizens.
He explained that while the Legislature was responsible for translating evidence into democratic accountability through budgetary scrutiny and oversight, the Executive should integrate evaluation into policy development, planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring, reporting and review.
The Supreme Audit Institution, he said, should provide independent assurance on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure, while the National Evaluation System should strengthen standards, quality assurance, professional capacity and the tracking of recommendations.
Citizens, according to him, must also be recognised as rights-holders, taxpayers and knowledge-holders whose experiences constitute important evidence for assessing government performance.
He stressed that auditing and evaluation were complementary but different processes, noting that a project could comply with procurement and financial regulations yet fail to deliver meaningful benefits to its intended beneficiaries.
On the way forward, Ale outlined seven strategic priorities for strengthening Nigeria’s national evaluation capacity.
These include institutionalising evaluation across all levels of government, establishing sustainable domestic financing, developing a professional evaluation workforce, building national evaluation data and knowledge infrastructure, strengthening independence and quality assurance, integrating evaluation findings into budgeting and policymaking, and making evaluation participatory and citizen-centred.
He called for dedicated evaluation responsibilities and annual plans across ministries, departments and agencies, supported by adequate budgetary provisions and mechanisms for responding to evaluation findings.
He further advocated professional training, certification, postgraduate programmes, mentorship and ethical standards to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on external consultants.
The keynote speaker emphasised that evaluators must be allowed to report unfavourable findings without intimidation or political interference, insisting that the credibility of evidence depended on the integrity of the process through which it was generated.
He also urged government institutions to move away from an evaluation-reporting culture towards an evaluation-use culture in which findings directly influence public spending, policy reforms and development priorities.
Ale noted that Nigeria already had foundations for strengthening its national evaluation system, including the National Monitoring and Evaluation Policy of August 2022 and Chapter 38 of the National Development Plan 2021–2025.
He identified the proposed 2027–2032 policy review and the National Development Plan 2026–2030 as opportunities to institutionalise existing commitments and strengthen the country’s evaluation framework.
He also highlighted the responsibility of the Nigerian Association of Evaluators in promoting professional standards, ethical guidelines, quality assurance, accreditation, peer learning and stronger collaboration among government, academia, development partners, civil society and the private sector.
Ale proposed a National Compact on Evidence Ownership, Evaluation and Accountability, built around six commitments: evidence-based governance, national evaluation capacity, institutional independence, transparency, accountability and action, and citizen participation.
He recommended that the compact should be supported by measurable indicators, implementation timelines, periodic reviews and an annual State of National Evaluation Capacity Report.
Illustrating the importance of evaluating development outcomes rather than merely counting completed projects, he said a report indicating that 100 boreholes had been constructed was insufficient to establish the success of a water project.
According to him, a proper evaluation must determine how many boreholes remained functional, whether the water was safe, whether women and children spent less time fetching water and whether sustainable maintenance arrangements were in place.
He maintained that the ultimate value of evaluation was its ability to distinguish between development activities and actual improvements in people’s lives.
Concluding, Ale declared that evidence belonged to the nation, while its credibility depended on the integrity of the process through which it was generated.
He added that what was not measured could not be adequately understood, while evaluation findings that were not acted upon could not deliver their full development value.
He urged Nigeria to embrace a culture of learning, evidence-based governance and accountability, stressing that evidence was an asset of development, evaluation was the mechanism through which the asset created public value, and accountability guaranteed that the value reached the people.
Kehinde Ayanboade
Kehinde Ayanboade is the Managing Editor and Publisher of Naija Metro News, with over eight years of experience covering Nigerian politics, crime, legislative proceedings and metropolitan affairs.
