Learning and adjusting
Monitoring and evaluation both serve the purpose of learning. While monitoring is an ongoing activity it gives information on the progress of the implementation of the procurement capacity development initiative and enables ongoing adjustment if targets are not being met.
Evaluation is a periodical exercise that allows stock-taking and providing lessons learned both for the ongoing procurement capacity development initiative and for other initiatives.
Monitoring & Evaluation
The implementation of a monitoring and evaluation framework should be integrated into existing monitoring structures. When moving from planning to implementation, the monitoring framework should be reinforced and elaborated including finalizing roles and responsibilities, indicators, baselines, risk and targets and establishing the required information systems. At this point some indicators may need to be adjusted. The monitoring framework should be implemented including applying tools to collect and analysis the data. In addition the communication of results should be an important activity and feeds into the management of change.
Download the file "Illustrative Results Framework" to support your work.
While monitoring gives ongoing information on whether the change is going in the right direction and at the speed as planned, it doesn't give information on the reason for the changes or how they are happening. Evaluations can be used to uncover what is working and what is not, and why. Generally evaluations should be done when there is a divergence between the planned and actual performance, when there is a need to document that the right results are achieved, or when decisions need to be made about resource allocations. Being able to demonstrate progress and results is an important aspect in being able to justify and ensure ongoing funding.
As well as providing information that can be used to validate the strategy, make mid-term corrections and improve the design and implementation and ensure accountability, monitoring and evaluation activities can provide a good source of data and "stories" to feed into the communications strategy.
Tools
Tools for Monitoring and Evaluation are included below.
See the file collection for all resources in this toolkit.