Ian Goldman

Ian Goldman is Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town, a fellow of South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council and a visiting Professor at the University of Reading, UK.

As a UNU-WIDER Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow, Professor Goldman is involved in the Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development programme. He is an advisor on the project’s sub-component on reform implementation.

He is President of the International Evaluation Academy, on the Board of the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). He is an Advisor with the Global Evaluation Initiative, the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results for Anglophone Africa (based at the University of Witwatersrand), and the Climate Investment Funds.

He has worked in 20 countries on rural development, decentralization, community-driven development, action learning and planning, monitoring and evaluation. He was previously Deputy Director General in South Africa’s Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, heading the Evidence and Knowledge Systems branch, establishing and running South Africa’s national evaluation system. He was responsible for establishing and cofacilitating training provided by the University of Cape Town to the top three levels of the South African public service in Evidence-Based Policy Making and Implementation, similarly in Uganda and Benin. He has run training courses, mostly for government, in or for South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Benin, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Lesotho, the Caribbean, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, and the UK.

He was co-editor with Mine Pabari and author of several chapters of the book Using Evidence in Policy and Practice – lessons from Africa, Oxford: Routledge, 2020, published in French by Harmattan in 2022. As of 2022 he has also published ten chapters, 33 papers, 30 major reports, 32 policy briefs/guidelines, and delivered 78 presentations.