The University of the Free State (UFS) has recently been awarded a grant of R3 million from the Rockefeller Foundation in the USA to engage development evaluation leaders to provide practical assistance to the foundation to better articulate, monitor, evaluate and report on their results and strategies in order to achieve impact.
The grant was secured by the university's Research Development Directorate. It is the first time in 15 years that the Rockefeller Foundation makes a grant to the UFS.
The New York-based Rockefeller Foundation focuses on basic survival safeguards, transforming health systems, climate change and environment, urbanisation, and social and economic security in Africa and Asia.
Dr Zenda Ofir (Evalnet), an internationally renowned evaluation specialist and affiliated Senior Research Fellow at the UFS, is the project leader. Proffs Frans Swanepoel and Aldo Stroebel from the university will work closely with Dr Ofir and other Rockefeller initiative teams, key grantees and partners, mainly on issues of strengthening food security in Africa.