This brief is based on a discussion paper titled Interrogating Leadership Paradigms using a Public Sector lens: creating horizontal leadership spaces for inclusive and transformative Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning practice. The brief starts from the premise that monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) as a performance measurement practice also has the potential to be a dynamic tool that can facilitate and support socio-economic transformation. This can only happen, however, if there are two major shifts in the field of MEL – the practice itself, and the structures / systems within which it is practiced. Many countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region have long term visionary development strategies that aim to create equitable, inclusive, and sustainable societies that ensure that no one gets left behind. Typical examples would be South Africa’s National Development Plan: Vision 2030, Tanzania’s Development Vision 2025, Uganda’s Vision 2040 and Nigeria’s National Development Plan 2021-2025. All these planning visions incorporate the principles of sustainable, holistic and inclusive development based on national value systems. These strategies align with the ‘Leave no one behind’ agenda of the United Nations (UN) agenda, which is the central, transformative commitment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eradicate poverty in all its forms, end discrimination and exclusion, and reduce the inequalities and vulnerabilities that leave people behind and undermine the potential of individuals and of humanity as a whole.
