I will begin by answering your last question: "Have public policies and projects developed subsequent to the conducted evaluations taken into account previous errors and corrections?"
To this question, I answer NO. If previous mistakes and corrections were regularly taken into account in Africa, and especially in French-speaking African countries, these countries would have developed a long time ago. Serious problems jeopardize the development and management of public policies in these countries. First, the development of these public policies and programs are often not assigned to true professionals in the field. But, this is not the most serious issue. Most importantly, monitoring and evaluation of public policies is not taken seriously, just as managers of these programs are often in disagreement with monitoring and evaluation officers. I really know something about this as I have been responsible for monitoring and evaluation for several development projects. However, the lack of emphasis on monitoring and evaluation prevents us from really following the established indicators and, in the end, it prevents a good database, information and relevant statistics to guide the improvement of the quality of future programs. The issue of monitoring and evaluation is very serious. In other cases, it is thought that it is a waste to spend money on monitoring and evaluation. Developing countries, however, are the ones who value monitoring and evaluation. Because, it allows them not to repeat the same mistakes and go faster in the implementation of future programs. Really, I do not know if one day we will begin in our countries to better consider the monitoring-evaluation to the point of following the recommendations it allows to identify. If that happened, it would be a big step towards development. It is my wish.
========== Dr Ir. Emile N. HOUNGBO Agroéconomiste, Enseignant-Chercheur Directeur, Ecole d'Agrobusiness et de Politiques Agricoles Université Nationale d'Agriculture, Bénin
RE: Recurring errors in public policies and major projects: contributions and solutions from evaluation
Dear all,
I will begin by answering your last question: "Have public policies and projects developed subsequent to the conducted evaluations taken into account previous errors and corrections?"
To this question, I answer NO. If previous mistakes and corrections were regularly taken into account in Africa, and especially in French-speaking African countries, these countries would have developed a long time ago. Serious problems jeopardize the development and management of public policies in these countries. First, the development of these public policies and programs are often not assigned to true professionals in the field. But, this is not the most serious issue. Most importantly, monitoring and evaluation of public policies is not taken seriously, just as managers of these programs are often in disagreement with monitoring and evaluation officers. I really know something about this as I have been responsible for monitoring and evaluation for several development projects. However, the lack of emphasis on monitoring and evaluation prevents us from really following the established indicators and, in the end, it prevents a good database, information and relevant statistics to guide the improvement of the quality of future programs. The issue of monitoring and evaluation is very serious. In other cases, it is thought that it is a waste to spend money on monitoring and evaluation. Developing countries, however, are the ones who value monitoring and evaluation. Because, it allows them not to repeat the same mistakes and go faster in the implementation of future programs. Really, I do not know if one day we will begin in our countries to better consider the monitoring-evaluation to the point of following the recommendations it allows to identify. If that happened, it would be a big step towards development. It is my wish.
==========
Dr Ir. Emile N. HOUNGBO
Agroéconomiste, Enseignant-Chercheur
Directeur, Ecole d'Agrobusiness et de Politiques Agricoles
Université Nationale d'Agriculture, Bénin