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Result-Based Monitoring and Evaluation

Results-based monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a management strategy that focuses on achieving desired development results. It requires clearly defined accountability for results and monitoring progress toward outcomes. Key differences between monitoring and evaluation are that monitoring tracks progress toward targets, while evaluation takes a broader view and assesses causal contributions and lessons learned. Doing results-based M&E well requires establishing indicators and collecting baseline data in order to effectively measure and report on performance over time.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
571 views11 pages

Result-Based Monitoring and Evaluation

Results-based monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a management strategy that focuses on achieving desired development results. It requires clearly defined accountability for results and monitoring progress toward outcomes. Key differences between monitoring and evaluation are that monitoring tracks progress toward targets, while evaluation takes a broader view and assesses causal contributions and lessons learned. Doing results-based M&E well requires establishing indicators and collecting baseline data in order to effectively measure and report on performance over time.
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Cite As Otundo Martin (2019), Result-Based Monitoring And Evaluation. academia.

edu
Abstract
Results-based management is a management strategy by which all actors on the ground,
contributing directly or indirectly to achieving a set of development results, ensure that their
processes, products and services contribute to the achievement of desired results, outputs,
outcomes and goals). Result based management rests on clearly defined accountability for results
and requires monitoring and self-assessment of progress towards results, including reporting on
performance.
Martin Otundo is a PhD Student in PPM at JKUAT Mombasa Kenya:
Available at [email protected] or whatsapp +254721246744

RESULT-BASED MONITORING AND EVALUATION

BACKGROUND
In the 1990s, international development entered a reform and reformulation
phase. World leaders as well as the United Nations and other multilateral
institutions recognized that bold steps should be made in terms of efficient use of
the development aid funds.

In 2005 in Paris, all the efforts jointly made by countries and agencies targeting
development results and new ways of improving aid were discussed in terms of
harmonization, alignment, and results.

The principles of the declaration of Paris include Ownership, Alignment,


Harmonization, Result based management and Mutual Responsibility.
Development result based management is one of the basic principles of the
Declaration of Paris; it is defined as a more effective international development
aid.

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• According to the Declaration of Paris, “result based management means
managing and implementing aid; focussing on expected results and using
available data to improve decision making process.”

• RBM is therefore an approach which systematically focuses on the results,


rather than on achieving defined activities, and optimizing use of human and
financial resources.

Results-based management is a management strategy by which all actors on the


ground, contributing directly or indirectly to achieving a set of development
results, ensure that their processes, products and services contribute to the
achievement of desired results, outputs, outcomes and goals). Result based
management rests on clearly defined accountability for results and requires
monitoring and self-assessment of progress towards results, including reporting on
performance.
Once it is agreed to pursue a set of results through a program, implementation
starts and monitoring becomes an essential task to ensure results are being
achieved. Finally, Monitoring and evaluation provide invaluable information for
decision-making and lessons learned for the future.

Results-Based Monitoring
Results-based monitoring is a continuous process of collecting and analyzing
information to compare how well a project, program, or policy is being
implemented against expected results.

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Key monitoring tools or mechanisms
 Self assessments
 Field visits
 Reports
 Review
 Feedback from partners or beneficiaries on progress

Results-Based Evaluation
Results-based evaluation is an assessment of a planned, ongoing, or
Completed intervention to determine its relevance, efficiency, effectiveness,
impact, and sustainability.
Evaluation focuses on expected and achieved accomplishments, examining the
results chain, processes, and casualties in order to understand achievements or lack
thereof.
Evaluation aims at determining the relevance/appropriateness, effectiveness,
efficiency, impact and sustainability of the interventions and contributions of the
organizations.
Evaluation is to be decided during the initial planning process.
It requires planning and may need the involvement of external evaluators.
It is based on the set of indicators set during the initial planning process.

Difference between Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation


• Monitoring is focused on tracking evidence of movement towards the
achievement of specific, predetermined targets
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• Evaluation takes a broader view of an intervention, considering not only progress
towards stated goals, but the logic of the initiative, as well as its consequences
• Both are needed to be able to better manage
policies, programs, and projects

Importance of Result based Monitoring and Evaluation


• Growing pressures in developing countries to improve performance of public
sectors
• Tracks results of government actions over time
• Is a management tool
Complementary Roles of Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring
 Clarifies program objectives
 Links activities and their resources to objectives
 Translates objectives into performance indicators and sets targets
 Routinely collects data on these indicators, compares actual results with
targets
 Reports progress to managers and alerts them to problems
Evaluation
 Analyzes why intended results were or were not achieved
 Assesses specific causal contributions of activities to results
 Examines implementation process
 Explores unintended results
 Provides lessons, highlights,significant accomplishment or program
potential, and offers recommendations for improvement
Comparison between Traditional & Result based M&E
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Traditional
• Inputs
• Activities
• Outputs
Results-Based
• combines traditional with assessment of outcomes and impacts
• allows organization to modify and make adjustments to theory of change
implementation processes.

The Power of Measuring Results


• If you do not measure results, you cannot tell success from failure
• If you cannot see success, you cannot reward it
• If you cannot reward success, you are probably rewarding failure
• If you cannot see success, you cannot learn from it
• If you cannot recognize failure, you cannot correct it
• If you can demonstrate results, you can win public support

Ten steps to building a result-based M&E System


Step 1: Conducting a Readiness Assessment
Step 2: Agreeing onPerformance Outcomes to Monitor and Evaluate
Step 3: Selecting Key Indicators to monitor outcomes
Step 4: Gathering Baseline data on indicators
Step 5: Planning for
Improvements — Setting realistic targets
Step 6: Monitoring for Results
Step 7: The Role of Evaluation

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Evaluation—When to Use?
• Any time there is an unexpected result that requires further investigation
• When resource or budget allocations are being made across projects, programs, or
policies
• When a decision is being made whether or not to expand a pilot project
• When there is a long period with no improvement and the reasons for this are not
clear
• When similar programs or policies are reporting divergent outcomes
Step 8: Reporting Findings

Step 9: Using Findings


Ten Uses of Results
Findings
• Responds to elected officials’ and the public’s demands for accountability
• Helps formulate and justify budget requests
• Helps in making operational resource allocation decisions
• Triggers in-depth examinations of what performance problems exist and what
corrections are needed
• Helps motivate personnel to continue making program improvements
Step 10: Sustaining the Monitoring &Evaluation System within the Organization
Critical Components crucial to Sustaining M&E System
• Demand
• Clear roles and responsibilities
• Trustworthy and credible information
• Accountability
• Capacity

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• Incentives
Result based management life cycle approach

There are three salient features of result based management:


 Accountability
 National ownership
 Inclusiveness

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These features should be embodied in results-based management from
beginning to end.
Accountability
Along with results-based management, the issue of accountability has assumed
increasing importance over the last decade. The language of accountability and
results are often used interchangeably to the confusion of users. It is therefore
helpful to try and unpack the applied meaning of accountability at different levels
of engagement, as follows:
Governments serve as the primary owner and executing agents of programmes of
Cooperation and are accountable to their people, through their parliaments, for
delivering on national development objectives (sometimes referred to as national
goals, national outcomes, etc.).Results that occur at this level should be primarily
attributable to the Government, although circumstances may vary.
An actor that has an implementation role is accountable to the executing agency for
the delivery of goods and services. Typically, implementing agents are primarily
accountable for the achievement of outputs. Likewise, the achievement of outputs
can be primarily attributed to an implementing partner. Finally, providers of inputs,
such as vendors and contractors, are accountable to implementing agents for the
satisfactory delivery of specified items. At each level, there is an expectation that
an accountable party has the capacity to undertake its responsibilities to make its
contributions to results. If this capacity is not in place, then either capacity needs to
be developed or, where applicable, alternative arrangements sought.

National Ownership

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This requires leadership and engagement of all relevant stakeholders, in all stages
of the process. National ownership does not mean control over resources or a
commitment to donor interests, to which the donor attaches support to achieve
results in specific areas. The donor attaches the highest importance to national
ownership (included but not limited to government ownership) and therefore the
results at higher level, e.g., at the impact and outcome levels, are predominantly
owned by national actors.

Inclusiveness

Finally, inclusiveness is another important Result Based Management feature.


Result Based Management must involve all relevant stakeholders, including,
whenever possible, different levels of government, social partners and civil society,
such as indigenous peoples, minorities and direct beneficiaries. One should not
expect stakeholders to be responsible for results and indicators they did not define,
negotiator agrees on. Stakeholder engagement is not only necessary for partnership
but also sustainability. Increasing evidence shows that sustainability is more likely
when stakeholders are involved in the development process from the onset: country
analysis, defining results and indicators, implementation, and monitoring and
evaluation of programmes and projects

What is result?
A result is a describable or measurable change in state that is derived from a cause
and-effect relationship. There are three types of such changes (intended or
unintended, positive and/or negative) which can be set in motion by a development
intervention that generates outputs, outcomes and impact. While it is expected that

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result based management will lead to positive outcomes, since efforts most often
try to improve the socio-economic conditions of poor people, this is not always the
case. Change can sometimes lead to unintended consequences or negative impact.
Thus, it is important to manage for results that can truly have a real and meaningful
improvement on people’s lives.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION PLAN

1. Examine programme results


2. Identify relevant indicators and determine their feasibility
3. Design the means of verifications and methodology for collecting the necessary
data to generate the indicators
4. Generate baseline data
5. Set targets and milestones with full participation of the constituents and other
patners
6. Agree on who should do what: success of any monitoring and evaluation system
depend largely, on the existence of an adequate and properly functioning
institutional framework
7. Develop a detailed data collection tools and timeline.
8. Develop a plan to disseminate and use monitoring and evaluation findings.

KEY TO MONITORING AND EVALUATION


Quantitative or qualitative factor or variable that provides a simple and a reliable
means to measure achievement, to reflect the changes connected to an intervention,
or to help assess performance of a development actor

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In any program/project, indicators depend on outcomes/objectives. While results
tell us what the programme plans to achieve, indicators tell us how to measure and
ascertain if those results/outcomes are realized or not.

REFERENCES

1. UNDP Handbook on planning, monitoring and evaluating for development


results, (2009).

2. Result based management, monitoring and evaluation, Workshop on the review


of Ethiopia decent work country programme, 8-10 august 2011.

3. Building Evaluation capacity to strengthen governance, Rist, Rac, World Bank


Publications, 2011

4. Evaluating Capacity Development: Horton, Douglas, ISNAR, 2003.

Key to M&E
Quantitative or qualitative fand

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