Introducing digitalisation to strengthen evaluation systems for democracy in African parliaments

ABSTRACT African parliaments are a unique institutional context for evidence use, and processes for digitalisation have specific implications for how evidence systems can contribute to democracy. While African parliaments have organisational features that make introducing technology challenging, they also hold significant promise for using digitalisation as a tool to strengthen democratic governance both within parliaments themselves, and also across the executive. This article shares experiences introducing a research management tool in two African parliaments, and reflects on what it means for the role evaluation plays in strengthening democracy. This is through looking at the technical components of digitalisation, the contextual components, and the political and values driven elements of the parliamentary context. This article describes these components, and reflects on their implications for the way democratic evaluation is understood in a context of African governance.