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Participatory Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation
The key strategic directions in these include the following:
- ASE involves the key partners, including the community, local government partners and other NGOs, in the process of programme formulation, drawing up of plans, periodic monitoring meetings, periodic review meetings and reflective and evaluative exercises. In order to make sure that the pertinent stakeholders are actively participating and that the community is duly playing its role in decision-making, ASE will develop indicators and mechanisms that will help it properly monitor the process.
- Develop the capacity of the CBIs to do participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation. This is a strategic intervention which is crucially important for developing the community’s assets, local institutions, the democratic process, good governance and constructive dialogue within the entire local system.
- Support the local government’s system for exercising participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation in some of the key interventions such as the productive safety net programme, participatory research, extension and training programmes, development of the forthcoming PASDEP and other specific development projects.
- Make sure that the CBIs participate in ASE’s periodic planning, monitoring and evaluation sessions as well as in the development of new strategic plans.
ASE has long been working with participatory monitoring and evaluation systems that have certainly been instrumental to achieving the above-described strategic directions. To further strengthen the system, the following essential points need to be given due attention:
- Allocation of sufficient resources and time during the pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, to ensure stakeholders’ participation, comprehensive data-generation and a sound project formulation;
- The principle of optimal ignorance will be adopted for cost-effectiveness in all programme cycles;
- Adequate qualitative and quantitative baseline data will be collected and timely analysed and documented;
- Planning will be an essential part of the ongoing functions of ASE, and on-shelf projects will be readily available;
- During the planning process, SMART indicators will be developed to monitor and evaluate programme performances and impacts;
- Participatory monitoring will be conducted frequently through surveys, field observation, interviews and review of documents; then its findings will be timely analysed, documented and disseminated;
- The various stages that a programme has already gone through will be reviewed after some essential events have taken place and feedback has been provided both downwards and upwards;
- A continuous evaluation will be done on the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and impacts of the programmes; and
- Vertical and horizontal communication will be enhanced by strengthening management information systems (MIS).
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