Monitoring and evaluation at the national level (pt I) - A welcome proposition

Wayne Hedlund says? Don’t expect what you don’t inspect. Peter Drucker recasts the same idea with the statement: What gets measured gets done.

These two simple statements refer to the vital role of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) in delivery of results in every undertaking.

The M&E has become an important component of project management and plan implementation in recent times. In Ghana, most Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have PBME units established to provide technical backstopping in the areas of planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation to the operations of the various institutions.

Many multi and bi-lateral agencies and even private sector institutions have M&E departments which track the implementation of their programmes and projects.

In Ghana, the importance of M&E in development management assumed a prominent dimension when the current government raised its position to a ministerial level. The author, as a professional planner, provides some insights in support of this initiative of the government.

Definitions

M&Es are management tools aimed at measuring performance and achievement levels of projects, as well as impacts of projects on the intended beneficiaries. Although monitoring and evaluation are conceived as related tools, their functions differ.

Monitoring involves tracking the ongoing process to enable stakeholders to obtain regular feedback on the progress being made towards achieving project goals and objectives. Monitoring does not only track project progress, but also in the broader sense, it tracks strategies and actions being taken by partners towards achieving results.

Evaluation on the other hand is a periodic (e.g., quarterly), rigorous and independent assessment of either completed or ongoing activities to determine the extent to which they are achieving stated objectives and contributing to reviews in decision making. Evaluations, like monitoring, can apply to many things, including an activity, project, programme, strategy, policy, topic, theme, sector or an organisation.

The outcome of M&E is supposed to provide vital information and feedback on which project management decisions and corrective measures are based. M&Es, therefore, promote and enhance incorporation of long-term experiences into ongoing project management process and create room for adjustment to accommodate changing economic and political circumstances.

Changing perceptions, earlier applications and ineffectiveness

Traditionally, M&Es have been generally associated mainly with donor agencies. However, it is increasingly being acknowledged that donor interventions have a higher potential of sustainability if these tools are developed and managed with greater involvement of the beneficiaries. As a result, it has become prudent in contemporary times to incorporate M&E systems to all policies, programmes and activities to ensure their sustainability. Not only has the scope of M&E expanded from donor agencies programmes to governmental policies and programmes, but also the focus has changed.

Conventional M&E approach comprises reviews and assessment of impacts by "neutral" outsiders who are more likely to give unbiased and uninfluenced assessment. This method is criticised to be monolithic in form and basically extractive in process to produce financial accountability rather than to identify and respond to changing needs and impacts of projects. There is often an unbalanced focus on the logical framework (called in certain circles Logframe) that detail out the objectives and outcomes that the project was initially designed to produce. The objectives and targets of the project are critically assessed in terms of what has happened on the ground.

This view of M&E placed much emphasis on stated objectives and outcomes on the logical framework which could not capture several unintended impacts resulting from the project. As a result of this limitation, there is, therefore, a gradual paradigm shift from this approach to an all involving approach.

This is exactly what the contemporary perspectives of M&E seek to address by employing participatory approaches.

New perspectives and applications – Participatory M&E

Recent thinking favours M&E methodology which is essentially participatory in approach. It is seen as a tool for learning from experience. Its appeal lies in the fact that it is action oriented and provides the framework for key stakeholders to be intensively involved alongside a technical team in reflecting, analysing and devising strategies to implement identified changes. The critical focus is the active and responsible involvement of stakeholders in data collection and analysis with the process facilitated by resource persons.

This new perspective of M&E anchored to participatory philosophy provides the framework for all stakeholders to be responsibly involved in the monitoring and evaluation exercise of projects which affect their lives. This technique is in keeping with the current concept of participatory planning and research that combine various methods of data gathering, analysis and formulation of policies, plans and programmes.

Specifically, it provides participatory and scientific mechanism for project managers, planners, policy makers and beneficiaries to:

• Track the progress of development activities during implementation and remain alert, in case of shortfalls or deviations, for early corrective actions;

• Determine systematically and objectively the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of development activities and their impact on the intended beneficiaries; and

• Learn lessons for future development planning (ie; for replanning, better design and implementation of projects and programmes.

Methodologies

In almost all disciplines, research methodologies are often characterized by divergent opinions and different schools of thought, mainly the quantitative and qualitative divide. The former is based on positivist philosophy which assumes that there are social facts with an objective reality; whereas the latter is rooted in a phenomenological paradigm which holds that reality is socially constructed through individual or collective definition of the situation.

The purpose of quantitative approach is to assess the causes of changes in social facts through objective measurements and quantitative analysis. It is achieved by employing experimental or correlational designs to reduce error in its measurements. On the other hand, qualitative approaches seek to understand social phenomenon from the actors’ perspective through participation in the life of those actors.

This is achieved by adopting ethnographic methods which help readers to understand the definitions of the situation.

While many conventional impact evaluation studies often lean towards quantitative methods, articipatory methods adopt a broader and integrative research methodology which bridges the unhealthy dichotomy between the application of quantitative and qualitative techniques. 

Participatory methods recognise the strengths and limits as well as the appropriate time and place of both methods in Impact Monitoring and Evaluation exercises particularly in the field of Poverty-Alleviation Programmes. It has been realised that in most cases, both are generally required to address different aspects of a problem and to answer questions which the other approach cannot answer well or cannot answer at all.

Read Part II of this article here; Monitoring and evaluation at the national level (II)• A welcome proposition