'Set up board for evaluation and monitoring'

21-01-08
Page 44


MONITORING and evaluation in all aspects of business activities must be taken seriously to ensure high standard of service delivery.
The Director of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Dr David S. Ameyaw, has therefore called for the establishment of a national governing board for monitoring and evaluation practices.
That, he noted, would ensure that standards were maintained by monitoring and evaluation professionals in all fields.
“The body will supervise the production and dissemination of products and services to support the profession. It will serve as a governance body and will systematically provide oversight responsibility for the conduct of monitoring and evaluation practices at all levels,” he said.
These were contained in a paper on “Professionalising Monitoring and Evaluation as a Specialised Discipline in Ghana” presented on his behalf at a programme organised by the Ghana M & E Forum in Accra on Tuesday.
It aimed at sharing professional insights into the art and practice of monitoring and evaluation and advocating the effective use of monitoring and evaluation.
Dr Ameyaw stressed the need for the development and maintenance of national monitoring and evaluation standards, adding that “evidence-based monitoring and evaluation is being proposed in the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) II as a national monitoring and evaluation standard”.
He suggested the development of a quality assurance and improvement programme for monitoring and evaluation, saying that the national monitoring and evaluation governing board could provide guidance and scorecards to government institutions, ministries, department and agencies (MDAs), as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
He said there should be an aggressive push towards the establishment of a professional identity and credibility for monitoring and evaluation in senior management structures and organisational decision and policy-making processes.
Dr Ameyaw indicated that monitoring and evaluation was a crucial management accountability tool and like all tools used by progressive public and private management agencies, it needed to be seen and perceived as a profession that had standard methodologies among other things.
The President of the African Evaluation Association, Dr Sulley Gariba, who delivered a paper on “Theory-based Approach to Evaluation”, underscored the need for a balance between monitoring and evaluation practices.
The Country Director of Innovations for Poverty Action, Mr Justin Oliver, said an evaluation should describe what actually happened as a result of a programme or policy.