The Rationale For M&E
Purposes of Monitoring and
evaluation
To identify the constraints or bottlenecks that hinder a
project in achieving its objectives and enabling
corrective action.
Accountability; Enables the project planners and
implementers to assess the benefits and costs that
accrue to the intended direct and indirect beneficiaries
of the project.
Strategic management; Essential for drawing lessons
from the project implementation experience and using
the lessons in the planning of other projects
Enables demonstration of results/impact and
document project achievements
Purposes of Monitoring and
evaluation
Operational management/ Implementation; To
track progress and provide information needed to
co-ordinate the human, financial and physical
resources committed to the project/program
To provide feedback at the various stages of the
project to the donors, implementers and
beneficiaries of the project
To support decision making and understanding of
dynamics of the project or program being
implemented
Key benefits of M&E
Improves project/program design through
feedback provided from baseline, midterm,
terminal and ex-post evaluations
Inform and influence sector and country
assistance strategy through analysis of the
outcomes and impact of interventions and the
strength and weaknesses of their
implementation
Provides evidence basis for building
consensus between stakeholders
Key benefits of M&E
Builds knowledge capital by enabling
governments or organizations to develop a
knowledge base of the types of programs and
projects that are successful (It enables one to
know what works, what does not and why)
May have a beneficial spill over effect on
other parts of government
Provides regular feedback on project
performance and shows need for mid-course
corrections
Key benefits of M&E
Identify problems early and proposes
solutions
Monitor access to project services and
outcomes by the target population
Evaluate achievement of project objectives
Incorporate stakeholder views and promote
participation, ownership and accountability
Factors contributing to the failure
of M&E systems
Lack of demand for and ownership for the
system that is rooted in the absence of a poor
evaluation culture
Poor institutional capacity (skills &
infrastructure) to develop, support and sustain
the system
Staffing and funding for M&E units is
inadequate, both in terms of quantity and
quality
Factors contributing to the failure
of M&E systems
Poor project planning/ systems design leading
to collection of too much data or wrong data
Too much attention directed to data collection
and too little to analysis of data in ways that
provide information that is useful to managers
Missing or delayed baseline studies. These
should strictly be done before the start of the
project implementation in order to facilitate
project comparison and evaluations
Factors contributing to the failure
of M&E systems
Inadequate utilization of results
Delays in data processing
Reliance on overly sophisticated methods
which may not be practical
Risks suffering the negative connotation of
passing judgment
Who should perform Monitoring
and evaluation
Internal or self evaluation means the same
people implementing a project/program are
responsible for the evaluation
External evaluation the evaluation is
conducted by an individual or group outside
the implementing organization
Internal evaluation with the use of an
external consultant- undertaken by the team
evaluating the project with the assistance of a
professional evaluator
Who should perform Monitoring
and evaluation
Independent evaluation undertaken by the
individuals or group who are not only outside
the implementing organization, but also
completely independent from it in terms of
control, remuneration capacity, political
pressure or other factors that could affect
objectivity
There is tremendous
power in measuring
performance
