Stakeholders at a consultative workshop on the draft policy on monitoring and evaluation have called on the government to come out with a standard monitoring and evaluation policy document to guide metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) on projects.
The scope of the policy is to standardise a national requirement for all development projects, programmes, projects, and public investments, as mandatory for ascertaining good governance and value for money to improve transparency and accountability.
The stakeholders noted that even though there were some institutional arrangements, there is no clear standardised regulation to give direction and harmony on how monitoring and evaluation activities were to be conducted.
This development, according to the stakeholders, resulted in fragmentation of systems with inadequate reports, which only comply with requirements, but rarely used for decision-making and improvement of policy implementations.
They expressed worry about how most evaluations conducted were donor-driven and non-existence of culture of monitoring and evaluating projects and programmes to ascertain their impacts, resulting in weak institutional arrangements, limited capacity, lack of integration, harmonisation and low demand.
The stakeholders made the call at a stakeholders consultative workshop on the draft policy in Kumasi, under the auspices of the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation in conjunction with the Ministry of Planning, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), in preparation of the draft.
Dr Charles Amoatey, of Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results at GIMPA, who facilitated the workshop indicated that, “the policy is expected to have impacts on financial prudence, evidence-based decision-making, enhanced accountability and transparency to strengthen central management agencies, policy targeting and enhance compliance with regulatory systems”.
William Sabi, Deputy Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation said the workshop was to tap into the expertise, skills and knowledge of MMDAs to get their inputs to make the document complete and workable for all.
“The ministry has been working with other stakeholders to closely follow up on resources the government has given to institutions, MMDAs and other public entities for proper service delivery and accountability,” he noted. –GNA