The Justice and Peace Service in a bit to strengthen its capacity in Monitoring and Evaluation enrolled the Capacity Building & Communications Officer (CBCO) of the Service in a 04 Day Workshop on Results-Based Monitoring And Evaluation (RBM&E) organized by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), East Legon – Accra, Ghana.
The workshop took place from the 03rd – 06thAugust 2015 with participants coming from Liberia, South Sudan, the Belgian International Agency for Development, Cameroon and within Ghana. In his welcome address, the main facilitator, Frank Shombo Arthur heartily welcomed all the participants, especially those from Liberia, South Sudan and Cameroon who were visiting Ghana for the first time.
Participants were briefed on the origin of the Results-Based Management (RBM) Approach; going beyond the implementation of activities to demonstrating results. This has at its base, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, and the Accra Agendafor Action to accelerate and deepen the implementation of the Paris Declaration. Key concepts were defined, amongst them were RBM;
- Defining realistic expected results
- Clearly identifying beneficiaries and designing programs to meet their needs
- Monitoring progress towards results using appropriate indicators
- Identifying and managing risks
- Increase knowledge by learning and integrating this knowledge into decision making
- Reporting on results achieved
Emphasis was laid on the principles of RBM; Partnership, Accountability, Transparency, Organizational Learning, Simplicity, and Flexibility.
Monitoring and Evaluation were simply defined as;
- Monitoring; A process of tracking change within the implementation of an action
- Evaluation; A snapshot of a project at a particular point in time after an intervention has been initiated.
The training also emphasized on the importance of the following questions one MUST ask before embarking on M&E;
- Who? Who are we doing M&E for?
- What? What are we monitoring and evaluating?
- How? How are we going to monitor and evaluate? Therefore, it is important to consider M&E at the designing phase of each project.
The intervention logic in the Logical Framework is also very important in RBM&E, and this to a greater extent depends on an analysis of the problem.
M&E Data Collection sources, methods, tools and analysis were also reviewed. Importantly, since not every data is relevant, the form, for Who, Frequency, and How analysis are key in determining what data to collect.
The Three Universal M&E Questions (Are we doing what we said we will do? (Internal Validity), Are we making any difference? (Change Assessment), Are there right things to do? (Strategic Relevance). The process of developing an M&E System, and M&E Planning tools were also reviewed.
Since M&E aims at ensuring effectiveness and efficiency, the results of such an exercise must be communicated in order to achieve management objectives. This was an input during this workshop, given by Jimm Chick Fomunjong. He laid emphasison on the need for communication to be audience-centred, clear, and appropriate means used to communicate, since the ultimate goal of Communication is to facilitate a change in behaviour.
Inputs during the workshop were interspersed with group/individual exercises, and take home assignments. In plenary, participants presented their assignments, after which discussion and experience sharing sessions followed.
A session on Stress Management was held at Lizzy Sports Complex where participants were encouraged to always find time to relax from the tedious work they do, as there will always be work. The session continued withsome physical exercises at the gym as a very positive way of relieving stress. At the end of the day, participants were awarded their end of course certificates in a closing ceremony.