If I hear you well, the challenge of measuring Monitoring and Evaluation work is just a symptom of a bigger problem with the national M&E system. Your ministry (office of the prime minister) has the mandate to oversee M&E functions in the country. The office of the president also carries out some parallel M&E work, including other government ministries (MoFPED-BMAU) charged with responsibility of carrying out budget M&E.
In such setting how do we make all efforts complement each other? How do we measure the M&E work as government? The answer to these questions might not come at the end of my submission but am glad we are discussing it now. It is very important!
While all the above is happening, there are also some pockets of project based M&E work in other government agencies and ministries (small scale). You rightly stated a possibility of coming up with some indicators of sort, that is a good proposal. However, locating the national M&E system within the broader planning strategy for the country (NDP 2) and linking the system to the different efforts would help in aggregating all M&E efforts. This way, I think you might be able to measure the impact of M&E work, maybe by producing an annual series of Reports on Impact of M&E for government of Uganda "The Annual M&E Outlook".
All the best and feel free to get in touch if need be.
RE: How to Measure the Impact of Monitoring and Evaluation Work
Greetings Mr. Abubakar,
If I hear you well, the challenge of measuring Monitoring and Evaluation work is just a symptom of a bigger problem with the national M&E system. Your ministry (office of the prime minister) has the mandate to oversee M&E functions in the country. The office of the president also carries out some parallel M&E work, including other government ministries (MoFPED-BMAU) charged with responsibility of carrying out budget M&E.
In such setting how do we make all efforts complement each other? How do we measure the M&E work as government? The answer to these questions might not come at the end of my submission but am glad we are discussing it now. It is very important!
While all the above is happening, there are also some pockets of project based M&E work in other government agencies and ministries (small scale). You rightly stated a possibility of coming up with some indicators of sort, that is a good proposal. However, locating the national M&E system within the broader planning strategy for the country (NDP 2) and linking the system to the different efforts would help in aggregating all M&E efforts. This way, I think you might be able to measure the impact of M&E work, maybe by producing an annual series of Reports on Impact of M&E for government of Uganda "The Annual M&E Outlook".
All the best and feel free to get in touch if need be.
Thanks,
Reagan Ronald Ojok
Uganda Development Bank