BUILDING M&E CAPACITIES TO ENHANCE THE NATIONAL M&E SYSTEM
IN GHANA – THE WAY FORWARD
A short paper for the 3rd International Conference on National Evaluation
Capacities (NEC)
By
Bruno B. Dery
Deputy Director, NDPC
SEPTEMBER 2013
LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
APR
CSO
DMTDP
GPRS I
GPRS II
GSGDA
JICA
M&E
MDAs
MDBS
MDGs
MMDAs
NDPC
NDPF
NGO
PM&E
PPMED
SMTDP
DRAFT 02
Annual Progress Report
Civil Society Organization
District Medium-Term Development Plan
Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy
Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy
Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda
Japan International Cooperation Agency
Monitoring and Evaluation
Ministries, Departments and Agencies
Multi-Donor Budget Support
Millennium Development Goals
Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies
National Development Planning Commission
National Development Planning Framework
Non-Governmental Organization
Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation
Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division
Sector Medium Term Development Plan
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1. BACKGROUND
The Government of Ghana is committed to effective public service delivery,
strengthening government accountability to its citizens, ensuring that policy
formulation and decision making are based on evidence and that results are
achieved in relation to its growth and development targets. The need to know
the extent of progress being made towards the achievement of stated national
policies and interventions through Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is
recognised in the 1992 Constitution and supported by several Acts of
Parliament. There is also a general recognition that M&E are the main
instruments for assessing the extent to which government has done what it
pledged to do within the context of its development policies and plans at all
levels of governance.
Ghana has elaborate institutional arrangements for M&E at the national,
regional and district levels. The constitution and supporting legislation have
defined M&E roles and responsibilities for government agencies, specific
departments of sector ministries and units in the regional and district
administration. The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) is
the apex body responsible for national M&E. The NDPC M&E guidelines lay
emphasis on the involvement of traditional authorities, civil society
organisations and development partners to create a participatory approach for
effective M&E and feedback mechanisms. The Commission recognises the
fact that both the ‘M’ and the ‘E’ are indispensable tools for measuring
performance and development outcomes.
2. THE
NATIONAL
M&E SYSTEM
In the past 10 years, the NDPC has increased its efforts to establish a
functional national M&E system and to eventually ingrain the culture of M&E
in the public sector. The system is hinged on the successive 4-year mediumterm National Development Policy Frameworks (NDPFs) and corresponding
development plans at the sector and district levels.
National Policy
Frameworks
The NDPF is the principal development policy blue print that is crafted at the
national level by the NDPC with inputs across the public and private sectors.
The NDPC collates and analyses the policy inputs from the Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and other sources to produce the NDPF.
The realisation of the policy objectives depend largely on its effective linkages
to development plans at the sector and district levels and to the national
budget. Consequently, effective M&E systems provide valuable feedback and
lessons for continuous improvement of the policies, plans and the national
budget. The indispensable linkages among these national development
building blocks are depicted in the Figure 1 below.
DRAFT 02
Page 2 of 8
POLICY
(NDPF)
NATIONAL
BUDGET
M&E
(S/D M&E PLANs)
PLAN
(S/D MTDPs)
Development Plans)
Figure 1: Policy, Plan, M&E Cycle and Budget Linkages
The last three NDPFs:
 Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS I) 2002 – 5,
 Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) 2006 – 9
 Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA) 2010 – 13.
Sector & District
Development Plans
Plan preparation follows policy formulation within the planning cycle (Figure
1). It is the medium for translating the policy objectives and strategies of the
relevant NDPF into implementable projects and programmes. It integrates the
spatial, social, economic and environmental issues into specific actions within
the decentralised planning system. In this respect, Guidelines are issued by the
Commission in line with the NDPF prescribing the process, format and content
of the development plans to the districts and sectors. Medium-term
development plans are then produced by all the Metropolitan, Municipal and
District Assemblies (MMDAs) and MDAs i.e. the District Medium Term
Development Plans (DMTDPs) and Sector Medium Term Development Plans
(SMTDPs). These plans are prepared for implementation to achieve the policy
objectives of the NDPF.
National M&E plans
The M&E processes begin after plan preparation (Figure 1). Effective M&E
systems are built on policy formulation, development planning and budgeting
systems and provide valuable feedback to those systems. M&E is the main
instrument for assessing the extent to which government has done what it
pledged to do in its national policy statements and development plans. The
NDPC has produced three national M&E plans in line with the GPRS I & II
and the GSGDA.
Sector & District
M&E guidelines
The Commission issues M&E guidelines for all MMDAs and sector MDAs to
prepare M&E plans for their corresponding development plans. The sector and
district M&E plans form the basis for their M&E systems and serve as the road
map for monitoring and evaluation of their development plans. The Guidelines
also contain formats and timelines for the preparation of the M&E plans as
well as quarterly and annual progress reports.
M&E Training and
Backstopping
The NDPC organises basic M&E training to core M&E staff of MMDAs and
DRAFT 02
Page 3 of 8
MDAs to enhance their understanding and capacities to prepare and implement
their M&E plans. The 2-day workshops first discuss the key concepts –
Monitoring, Evaluation and Participatory M&E. Participants are then taken
through the ten steps to prepare their M&E Plans with group exercises:
1) Identification and analysis of stakeholders
2) Assessing M&E needs, conditions and capacities
3) Monitoring indicators
4) M&E matrix
5) M&E work plan and calendar
6) M&E budget
7) Data collection, validation and collation
8) Data analysis and use of the results
9) Reporting
10) Information dissemination
Staff of the Commission also organise backstopping meetings or tailored
training programmes on request to further enhance their abilities to prepare
their respective M&E plans.
APRs
The majority of MMDAs and MDAs now prepare M&E plans and Annual
Progress Reports (APRs). Draft copies of these documents are submitted to the
Commission for review and approval. The Commission prepares checklists
that are used to review all the draft M&E plans and APRs submitted to ensure
compliance with the key requirements of the M&E guidelines and report
formats. Meetings are organised to provide feedback to all MMDAs and
MDAs in the form of general and specific comments on their M&E plans and
APRs. By so doing, the NDPC has streamlined the national M&E processes,
provided a standard yardstick for measuring progress and established the
minimum requirements for any M&E system in the country.
The NDPC has produced ten national APRs for the years 2002 to 2012 to
inform government on its performance, where it is doing well, where there is a
weakness and provided policy recommendations on what needs to be done to
minimize the weaknesses.
National M&E
Manual
DRAFT 02
A key recommendation from participants of the M&E training workshops
organised by the Commission was the need for a reference manual. The
Commission took up the challenge and produced a draft national M&E manual
with financial support from the World Bank and the Japanese International
Cooperation Agency (JICA). Review work on the manual should be completed
in August 2013 and the document printed, launched and disseminated widely
in the country. This document will supplement the M&E guidelines, M&E
plans and other M&E documents produced by the Commission in
collaboration with its development partners. This manual covers all the
essential elements of a national M&E system within the context of
development in the public sector of Ghana. The main themes of the manual are
discussed under four (4) Parts:
i. National M&E rationale and linkages
ii. Understanding key concepts
iii. Understanding M&E as a system
iv. Steps to developing the M&E system
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The four parts are subdivided into seventeen (17) Chapters.
Other M&E
Activities
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
3. CHALLENGES
1)
2)
3)
4)
DRAFT 02
Other efforts in this process of building the national M&E system include the
following. The Commission:
Conducted Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) to assess the
consequences of some government policy reforms on the poor and vulnerable
under GPRS I.
Undertook participatory M&E exercises on selected national issues and
produced Citizens Assessment Reports in 2005 and 2008
Disseminated widely the national APRs and organised regional dissemination
workshops to discuss their content.
Conducted advanced tailored M&E training programmes for the newly created
districts in 2009
Conducted a baseline study on budgetary resources spent on M&E and
Statistics by MDAs in 2011
Prepared biennial Ghana Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reports
with the support of UNDP to capture Ghana’s progress towards the attainment
of the MDGs for 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010
Despite the steady progress, the NDPC has to surpass numerous challenges in
its efforts to establish a functional national M&E system. These challenges
include the following:
Weak demand for and utilization M&E results
The demand and utilization of M&E results in policy formulation and decision
making is still very low at all levels in the country. For example, the national
APRs have been produced largely in response to development partners’
demands for information in the context of their direct support to the national
budget through the Multi-Donor Budget Support (MDBS) process. A higher
demand for M&E results by government would have ensured that all
interventions are monitored and the impacts of these programmes on citizens
effectively evaluated at all levels. A stronger demand for M&E results by
Parliament to play its oversight role over the Executive is needed. Civil
Society Organisations also need to increase their demand for M&E results for
advocacy and social accountability.
Limited resources and budgetary allocations for M&E
M&E has to date received little priority in all MDA and MMDA budgets and
comparatively insignificant actual disbursements. The funds released for M&E
activities are often insufficient to build and maintain effective systems. Some
MDAs and MMDAs even lack the physical equipment required to undertake
M&E and data production activities e.g. computer systems, transport and
office tools. Expenditure on M&E often loses out when budgetary releases are
inadequate. Evaluations are often not conducted mainly because of lack of
funds.
Weak capacity
Although some training has been provided by NDPC to MDAs and MMDAs,
the intuitional and individual M&E capacities do M&E remain weak. There
are limited resources to build the necessary M&E skills within MDAs and
MMDAs and to ensure that the M&E information is used to inform the budget
and policy formulation.
Lack of incentives, rewards and sanctions
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5)
6)
7)
4. THE WAY
FORWARD
Unaligned M&E frameworks to the guidelines issued by the NDPC are often
due to development partners supporting different M&E systems instead of
using the national M&E systems
Poor data quality, data gaps and inconsistencies
Every year, the following challenges are encountered in the production of the
national APR:
i) inconsistencies in the data provided by MDAs for the same variables over
the same time period
ii) incomplete data in the district APRs
iii) lack of data for some indicators
Inadequate management information systems and networks
Management information systems across MDAs and MMDAs are inadequate
and in some cases non-existent. In many MDAs, data from the district and
regional levels are not transferred electronically through Local or Wide Area
networks.
The NDPC recognises that the road to a functional M&E system is a very long
one. It is also aware it will have to build solid partnerships and continue to
refine the road map through a very participatory process. One of the immediate
steps the Commission must now take moving forward is to enhance the M&E
awareness and capacities of policy and decision makers at all levels of
governance in the country. With the support of JICA, the Commission will
soon organise tailored M&E training programmes for Ministers of State,
Members of Parliament, Chief Directors, District Chief Executives and
Presiding Members of the District Assemblies. If the political leadership
understand and appreciate the value of M&E it would translate into greater
support for the establishment of the national M&E system and enhance
investments on evaluations.
1)
2)
DRAFT 02
MDAs and MMDAs are not held to account for the results they achieve, to
demonstrate value for money or to explain whether they have achieved what
they said they would with the resources allocated. There are also no incentives
at the individual level to reward staff for carrying out M&E activities.
Non-compliance with M&E reporting timelines and frameworks
Majority of MMDAs now produce their M&E plans as well as APRs using the
agreed formats in the guidelines. However, the adherence to reporting
timelines remains a huge problem at all levels. The differing reporting cycles
of MDAs impedes the coordination of M&E results across Government and
impacts on the quality and timeliness of producing the national APR.
Other steps the Commission must take in the near future include the following:
Develop a national long-term policy on building institutional and individual
M&E capacities to increase the pool of skilled M&E specialists to support the
growth of the national M&E system
Develop mechanisms to increase the general awareness and recognition on the
necessity and benefits of having a strong national M&E System. This will
enhance the demand and use of M&E information by the office of the
President, Parliament, Civil Society Organisations, Research and academic
institutions, Development Partners, the Media and indeed all Citizens of
Ghana. There is an urgent need to shift from preparing APRs simply to comply
Page 6 of 8
3)
4)
5)
6)
DRAFT 02
with statutory requirements or donor-related demands to generating
domestically owned M&E products as an integral part of good governance at
all levels.
There is the need to institute rewards and sanctions for institutions and
individuals that abide by or fall short in the use of time and resources to meet
their M&E mandates. Example, strengthening the linkage between M&E
results and the release of funds to MDAs and MMDAs.
Develop a long-term strategy for a sustainable funding mechanism for all
M&E activities in the country. For example, by ear-making 2% to 5% of all
development budgets for M&E – investment and service portions of the
national budget, budgets of the medium-term development plans, budgets of
projects and programmes, etc.
Develop a long term mechanism to progressively increase the budgetary
allocations to the NDPC, MDAs MMDAs and the Ghana statistical Service to
conduct evaluations, to collect credible data and develop information
management systems. There is a need to have database systems readily
available for the storage, analysis, retrieval presentation and proper use of
M&E information for policy making and budget decisions. The ICT networks
between different levels of Government also need to be addressed to ensure the
timely and quality reporting of information and data.
Develop dialogue mechanisms that will ensure that all development partners
are aware and support the national M&E system and avoid duplication of
efforts.
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