National Audit Office: Good Governance Review on DFID’s Monitoring and Evaluation Arrangements

The following information has been sent out by email

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“The role and remit of the NAO

The NAO is tasked with examining the economy, effectiveness and efficiency
with which government departments have used public money. Our review will
examine DFID’s monitoring and evaluation framework and whether it
influences decision making and operational activities. In this instance,
our work will take the form of a management report to DFID, which will be
publicly available but not aimed at Parliament or the media.
Continue reading “National Audit Office: Good Governance Review on DFID’s Monitoring and Evaluation Arrangements”

Online M&E training: Additional sources

Solape Bamijoko, Gede Foundation, Abuja, Nigeria has identified these two sites providing online M&E training:
  • The Inter-American Development Bank website. http://www.iadb.org/int/rtc/ecourses/
    • “In an effort to train a critical mass of civil servants throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, the Bank is currently developing a number of electronic courses which are accessible from the IDB web-page, free of charge. Courses currently available are The Logical Framework for Project Design, Monitoring and Evaluation of Projects, Environmental Impact Assessment, and Institutional and Organizational Analysis.”

Continue reading “Online M&E training: Additional sources”

SlideShare presentations on Monitoring and Evaluation: A List

Please note: When you visit the SlideShare website to see these slideshows you can view these presentations on screen, or download them (in some but nor all cases). You can also make public comments on any of the slides that you see, using the Comment box under the screen.

If you have a presentation on monitoring and evaluation issues that you think visitors to the MandE NEWS website would like to see, then upload it to www.slideshare.net then send me (Rick Davies) the link to that presentation. I will then list it here, so others can find it.

PS1: You can add an audio track to the presentation very easily. Use open-source Audacity to record the track in MP3 format, upload it to www.slideshare.net and then follow the easy instructions to link the right bits of audio to the right parts of the presentation. Easy!

Slidecasts (= presentation + audio) from other sources (ODI and…)

  • Lines of Argument. Louise Shaxson talked about her experience working with DEFRA to develop and implement a tool called Line of Argument to help incorporate evidence into the environmental policy making process. 13 slides. 2008
  • The Outcome Mapping Story. Enrique Mendizabal’s presentation at ODI on a technique that was originally developed at the IDRC but that is now commonly used and promoted at ODI. 41 slides. 2007

ODI Seminar: Exploring the Science of Complexity in Aid Policy and Practice

Date: July 9th 2008
Venue: ODI, London

Dear All,

I am very pleased to be able to share with you all the agenda for the forthcoming Seminar at ODI on “Exploring the Science of Complexity in Aid Policy and Practice” (see below). [July 9th, ODI, London] The aim of this first Seminar is to bring together practitioners and researchers to discuss the key ideas of complexity thinking, and the relevance they have for those working in the international aid sector, and to identify some concrete and practical ways to take this area of work forward, both collectively and within our individual organisations.
Continue reading “ODI Seminar: Exploring the Science of Complexity in Aid Policy and Practice”

Event: Does UK development aid work?

Date: 17 July 2008
Venue: Wellcome Trust, London

ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE THE EVALUATION OF BRITISH AID – BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK…

3.30pm to 6.00pm (Registration from 3.00 pm) Book now – places limited!

Does British aid to poor countries work? Is the Department for International Development accountable for results? Is it a learning organization? These evaluation issues will be explored during a special event of the UKES London Network to be held on 17 July 2008.

Given tight budgetary constraints and the rapid expansion of United Kingdom funding for global poverty reduction, aid effectiveness has become an issue of salient political importance. The Independent Advisory Committee for Development Impact (IADCI) was established in November 2007 by the Secretary of State for International Development.
Continue reading “Event: Does UK development aid work?”

Online training: M&E Fundamentals

M&E Fundamentals is a two-hour self-instructional Web course that covers the basics of program monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the context of population, health and nutrition programs. It also defines common terms and discusses why M&E is essential for program management.

This course is designed for individuals as a self-guided resource, but it is also useful for learning or reviewing basic factual information before or during a traditional in-person training event.

To take this free course:
Go to http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/training/mentor and select “Interactive mini-course on M&E Fundamentals”

For more information about MEASURE Evaluation training materials and workshops, please visit www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/training.

See also on the MandE NEWS website

Conference: What Works in Development? Thinking Big and Thinking Small

Date: Thursday, May 29, 2008 to Friday, May 30, 2008
Venue: The Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC

Event Summary: Bill Easterly and Jessica Cohen of Brookings recently convened a conference with leading development experts to explore one of the most vexing issues of global development: what do we really know about what works and what doesn’t when fighting global poverty? The conference focused on the ongoing debate over which paths to development really maximize results: a big-picture approach focusing on the role of institutions, macroeconomic policies, growth strategies and other country-level factors; or a more grassroots approach focusing on particular microeconomic interventions such as conditional cash transfers, bed nets, teaching materials and other micro-level improvements in service delivery on the ground. The conference objective was to shed light on both schools of thought, with the goal of achieving a consensus on how to best leverage limited resources and time in the race to lift the lives of the world’s poorest.

Evaluation related papers, amongst others:

The New Development Economics: We Shall Experiment, But How Shall We Learn?
Author: Dani Rodrik (Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government)
Discussants: Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard University) & Martin Ravallion (World Bank)

Pricing and Access: Lessons from Randomized Evaluations in Education and Health
Author: Michael Kremer (Harvard University and the Brookings Institution)
Discussants: David Weil (Brown University) & Paul Romer (Stanford University)

Conference: EVALUATING THE COMPLEX

Date: 29 – 30 May 2008
Venue: Oslo, Norway

Norad’s Evaluation Department and Oslo University College is planning to hold a two-days conference entitled Evaluating the Complex. The purpose of this conference is to promote interest in and discussions about the role of evaluations in Norway. The main target group is people working professionally with evaluation on different levels; as evaluators, researchers, administrators and users. The conference will take place in Oslo, 29-30 May 2008 at Oslo University College in Pilestredet 35.

CONCEPT PAPER
Conference presentations here

Workshop: Standards & Practices in Evaluating Development

Date: August 3-8, 2008
Venue: University of Bamako, Mali

Organizer: Association pour la Promotion de l’Evaluation au Mali (APEM) – Bamako – Mali

Mamadou Keita – President (mkeita@delta- c.org)

Workshop Coordinator: Ahmed Ag Aboubacrine, DME Coordinator, CARE International in Sierra Leone,

ahmed1996@yahoo. fr

This event is part of the 5th Mali Symposium on Applied Sciences, to be held at the University of Bamako from August 3-8, 2008.

Abstract

Monitoring and evaluation of development intervention and policies’ implementation has become an absolute necessity after the setting of international norms of evaluation practices by donors as well as private sector, governments and local constituencies.

Evaluation has not become only a cross-cutting academic area (studied and subject of scientific researches) but also a basic requirement in almost all sectors: health, education, finance, infrastructure, social, agriculture, livestock, water and sanitation, urban planning, habitat, HIV/AIDS, transport, gender, corruption, governance.

Besides the standards set by independent organizations such as African Evaluation Association (www.afrea.org) and also IDEAS (http://www. ideas-int. org/ ); there are other specific evaluation mechanisms:

* African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)

* Governance Index of Mo Ibrahim foundation

* Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) National Evaluation Mechanisms supported by World Bank, African Development Bank, UNDP and other UN agencies.

Each of the above mentioned organizations has its norms and standards in monitoring and evaluation which are most of them very similar.

This mini-symposium objective is to promote monitoring and evaluation practices in Mali in order to ensure the effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of development interventions undertaken by the state, local constituencies, donors, NGOs and private sector.

The specific objectives are three:

* Sharing of existing evaluation standards (state-of-art)

* Exchanging on current practices of evaluation in Mali

* Finding out the strategies for generalization / institutionalization of evaluation practice by state actors

Submission of papers

Papers should be submitted in an A4 format and should not exceed four pages. All papers related to the standards and practices of evaluation in any area could be accepted.

For more details, visit our website:

http://www.msas. maliwatch. org/msas2008/ msas2008_ 018.html

MandE NEWS email List

If you want to talk with others about monitoring and evaluation then join the M&E NEWS email list. (< click this link). It has more than 2200+ members worldwide, and is growing in size every day. You can access monthly summaries of the 2007 and 2008  postings here.