Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officers from Vanuatu’s civil service met to discuss and learn more about how the government monitors and evaluates its programs and activities against the National Strategic Development Goals (NSDP).
The workshop looked at key activities contained in the Strategy including: capacity building for ministries, defining critical M&E tools and templates, and reviewing current monitoring templates.
M&E is a continuous process for collecting and analysing datas to compare how well progress, program or policies adopted by the Government is being implemented against results by the government.
The Monitoring & Evaluation Capacity Building and Reporting Workshop was organised by the Department of Strategic Planning, Policy and Aid Coordination (DSPPAC) under the Prime Minister’s Office whose task is to ensure a standard reporting system for activities and programs of government sectors in ministries and departments and line agencies that is, not only acceptable to all, but can be easily read and understood.
This all derived from the “Vanuatu 2030 and the complimentary NSDP M&E Framework” that was launched in 2017 at the National Convention Centre. The DSPPAC had to ensure that an implementation plan was developed, thus the development of the NSDP M&E Roll-Out Strategy (“Strategy”).
In their deliberation, workshop participants agreed that M&E had not been given a high priority over many other government programs resulting is difficulties to obtain information and collection of data for the compilation of reports, including annual reports.
Meanwhile, DSPPAC has finalised the National M&E Policy (MEP) that will be endorsed by the Council of Ministers this month, April 2018. It is this MEP that endeavours to establish a standard reporting system across government, and defines the roles and responsibilities, and the means of implementation for all relevant M&E stakeholders.
The Strategy includes awareness to ministries on how they will organise ministry and agency information for the Annual Development Report (ADR) which will be published by DSPPAC towards the end of April 2018.
At the session, the 30 participants were also presented an overview on NSDP M&E progress to date including planned activities for the NSDP M&E Framework through the MEP and the Strategy. The session also sought input on current monitoring templates and discussed reporting requirements and needs for the NSDP and other regular reporting activities.
This workshop will help each sector to prepare their reports for compilation in a standard format in preparation for the Government’s mid-year Report (six month) as well as the 2018 Annual Development Report covering costs, and achievements of various government projects.
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