Born in Cameroon, Serge Eric is a Credentialed Evaluator and fully Bilingual (French & English), Visiting Professor and International Consultant. He is the Co-Chair of the EvalIndigenous Network, Former President of the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA), Founder & Executive Director of the Cameroon Centre Evaluation and Development (CAED). He has 18+ years’ of experience in research and evaluation when working with government entities and Foreign affairs/donors such Global Affairs Canada and Danish Foreign Affairs, EU, GIZ & USAID; community-based organizations including NGOs; Civil Societies Organisations in Africa; and UN agencies including UNICEF, UNDP, UNWomen, ILO, WFP, UNESCO, FAO and IFAD.
As an Evaluation Team Leader, he led the design and implementation of over +70 country evaluations mostly in West & Central Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Senegal, Chad, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Congo, DR Congo, and Gabon), Eastern Africa (Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Burundi), Southern Africa (South Africa and Lesotho); Europe (Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, and UK), North America (Canada & USA), Middle East (UAE, andd Barhain), and Asia (Philippines & Sri Lanka). Most evaluation works include impact evaluation, summative and formative evaluation, capacity development and capacity needs assessment, decentralized evaluations, and thematic/mid-term reviews, monitoring and evaluation with diverse categories of projects and programmes in developing countries with case study reviews. He has an outstanding knowledge and experience in applying the OECD DAC criteria, the UN norms and standards in evaluation when working for instance for UN Agencies.
With advanced knowledge and experience in measuring, reporting, verification systems and methods, Serge Eric is passionate about delivery, results driven and can work independently and efficiently with limited guidance in a deadline-driven environment. He has an advanced computer proficiency especially in Microsoft Office package (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and statistical software including SNARP-SURVEY, SPSS, R, NVIVO, and Google based applications. He is talented and swift in the design of high-quality M&E reports in English & French, which could bear both technical and policy-oriented styles, results oriented with simple guidelines.
He is very active as Adviser for youth empowerment for their inclusion into the evaluation arena especially within professional networks in Francophone and Anglophone countries. Serge Eric served as Mentor for the EvalYouth initiative and for the Development for Peace Project of Search for Common Ground in USA. He wrote two books, training materials, several reports and articles. He is also member of various VOPEs such as IDEAS (Life member), the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES), Cameroon Development Evaluation Association (CaDEA), and the Canadian Association for International Development Professional (CAIDP).
Mr. Yakeu has a Double International M.Sc. in Rural development (Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and France, 2012), an Engineer Diploma (M.Sc.) in Agricultural economics and Rural Sociology (Cameroon, 2005), and a B.Sc. in Human Nutrition (Cameroon 2002). He also has several international certificates in Planning and Development Evaluation (Canada, IPDET 2013), in Participatory M&E and Results-Based Management (IFAD 2008 in Dakar, and CLEAR/WorldBank 2013 in Ouagadougou), in Equity-Focused Evaluation (Unicef 2012), in Development Cooperation (Belgium 2011). He finally has the Advanced Security In The Field (ASITF) and the Basic Security In The Field (BSITF II) Certificates of the UN Department of Safety and Security.
For further information on his profile, please visit: www.linkedin.com/pub/serge-eric-yakeu-djiam/40/151/1ab/
Serge Eric Yakeu Djiam
Credentialed Evaluator / Evaluateur QualifiéDo you think the Guidelines respond to the challenges of evaluating quality of science and research in process and performance evaluations?
As an international evaluation expert, I am so fortunate to evaluate a large range of projects and programs covering research (applied and non-experimental), development and humanitarian interventions. Over past decade, I got opportunities to employ various frameworks and guidelines to evaluate CGIAR projects and program proposals especially with the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Central Africa (Cameroon & Congo). For example, when leading the final evaluation of the Sustainable Tree Crops Programme, Phase 2 (PAP2CP) managed by the IITA-Cameroon, together with the team, we revised the OECD-DAC framework and criteria to include a science criterion to address the research dimensions such as inclusion and exclusion research criteria.
When designing high-quality research protocols for a science evaluation, establishing inclusion and exclusion criteria for study participants is a standard and required practice. For example, inclusion criteria define as the key features of the target population that the evaluators will use to answer their research question (eg. demographic, and geographic characteristics of the targeted location in the two regions of Cameroon) should be considered. These are important criteria to understand the area of research and to get a better knowledge of the study population. Reversely, exclusion criteria cover features of the potential study participants who meet the inclusion criteria but present with additional characteristics that could interfere with the success of the evaluation or increase their risk for an unfavorable outcome (eg. characteristics of eligible individuals that make them highly likely to be lost to follow-up, miss scheduled appointments to collect data, provide inaccurate data, have comorbidities that could bias the results of the study, or increase their risk for adverse events). These criteria can be also considered to some extent as part of the cross-cutting themes, but still are not covered by the OECD-DAC evaluation criteria and framework, therefore can be become a challenge for evaluating quality of a science/research and performance evaluation.
Are four dimensions clear and useful to break down during evaluative inquiry (Research Design, Inputs, Processes, and Outputs)?
A thorough review of the four dimensions shows that these are clear and useful especially when dealing with mixed methods approach involving both quantitative and qualitative methods and adequate indicators. Given that however context and rationale are always the best drivers of objectivity for the research design, research processes including collection of reliable and valid data/evidence to support decision-making process, it is very important that evaluators not only define the appropriate inclusion and exclusion criteria when designing a science research but also evaluate how those decisions will impact the external validity of the expected results. Therefore, on the basis of these inclusion and exclusion criteria, we can make a judgment regarding their impact on the external validity of the expected results. Making those judgments requires in-depth knowledge of the area of research (context and rationale), as well as of in what direction each criterion could affect the external validity of the study (in addition to the four dimensions).
Serge Eric