RELATING ASSESSMENT, MONITORING AND EVALUATION (2).ppt

RELATING ASSESSMENT,
MONITORING AND
EVALUATION
A PRESENTATION BY
JOHN AKUSE
POLICY & ADOCACY OFFICER
CiSHAN

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
 Participants should be able to
appreciate:
 The adaptive cyclical nature of
humanitarian interventions.
 The complementary roles and
relationships between assessment,
monitoring and evaluation
 The Practice of the three concepts

Introduction
 Humanitarian projects are adaptive
cyclic processes consisting of several
steps which are: assessment; analysis;
planning; implementation; monitoring;
evaluation
 There are tools that can help you
implement each stage of the project
cycle including assessment tools
(checklists), analytical tools (problem
trees) and planning tools (logical
framework)

 The programme Cycle
3
The Programme Cycle
Disaster Assess
Analyse
Plan, design
Implement
Monitor
Redesign
(Iterate)
Check assumptions
Evaluate

The cyclic and adaptive programme or project cycle.
 Assessment means collecting information on a disaster
situation
 Analysis imparts objective meaning to assessment data
 Planning uses analytical information to design projects
 Monitoring makes sure the job is being done
 Evaluation is a project activity which ensures that the
intervention is appropriate
 The cyclical diagram is used because interventions are
iterative to compensate for inadequate information at
the beginning (yet action must be taken)
 Also because organisations learn as they implement
projects and improve as they learn

Assessment
 Assessment means collecting information on a
disaster situation. It may occur right after a
disaster has occurred, and is called an initial
rapid assessment, or it may occur at any time.
Assessments produce a « snapshot » of a
particular disaster situation at a particular
moment in time.
 Assessments provide the information which is
used in an initial analysis of the set of problems
facing a population in a disaster. From the
analysis, a project plan is devised and
implemented.

Monitoring
 Monitoring is a continuous process that occurs during the
implementation of a project, is done by project staff, and finds out if
the job of helping people in disasters is being done right. Monitoring
looks at project activities as well as the context and impact of the
project.
 Monitoring is also essential for purposes of accountability to the
project’s official founders and public supporters and to the people
affected by the project.
 Furthermore, the different ways in which monitoring may be carried
out by project field managers is extremely varied. Different
circumstances, people and skills will require different approaches and
tools. Based on the information from monitoring, projects are
modified (or iterated) to meet the new context.
 Monitoring considers the Outputs

Evaluations
 Evaluation is a project activity, but not usually
done by project staff, may occur either mid-
way through, or at the end, or even a few years
after the project is done, and finds out if the
right job is being done.
 Evaluation looks at the Outcome or impact of
the project and the appropriateness of the
intervention. Both monitoring and evaluation
are activities which help people and
organisations learn.

Assessments methods
1
Common assessment methods
• Interview key existing elements on the ground
– Local population, civil authorities, agency staff
• Visual inspection and interviews
• Sample surveying using statistical methods
– Simple random sampling, systematic random sampling,
stratified random sampling, cluster sampling
• “Sentinel” surveillance (used often in health)
• Detailed critical sector assessments (specialists)
OFDA-FOG

The assessment process
 Another way to sum up the assessment process is to
refer to it as a loop that never really ends, as long as
response and assistance are in place. The cycle is
typically shown to run as follows :
 Identify information, needs, resources ;
 Collect data ;
 Analyse and interpret ;
 Report conclusions ;
 Design/ or modify response (note that after the initial
assessment, subsequent assessments are done to " keep
up with the changes in a dynamic situation " and to
correct the response in meeting these changing (or
newly discovered) needs. As the cycle continues,
assessment becomes nearly synonymous with
monitoring.

Limitations of Assessment
 Since emergency conditions are so
dynamic, the best an assessment can do
is paint a sketch in time. This sketch will
change even before one can respond to
the situation identified in the
assessment. The first assessment can
therefore also identify the most dynamic
factors in an emergency, and the
corresponding assumptions about the
causal pathway.
 Subsequent assessment information is
fed into the monitoring system.

Limitations of Assessment
 Balancing Speed and Accuracy
 There is a need to balance speed of assessment
activities with the accuracy achieved or the
confidence that assessors and others place in the
assessment results. In reality, this is not an
either/or type of question, but one of
maximisation of both elements to the extent
possible in the emergency situation.
 In other words, both time and accuracy are
crucial, loss of either will negatively affect the
usefulness of the information. In pragmatic terms
the assessor must strive to be " pretty accurate
pretty fast ".

Sphere Assessment Standards
 The structure of the Sphere Handbook shows
the chain of relationships from a fundamental
belief in the essential human right to life with
dignity, to the need to set standards for what
that means, to the need to analyse where and
how these standards should be best applied, to
the practical foundation for all of these actions
– assessment.
 Each chapter sets the assessment standard for
carrying out professional assessments in its
particular area or sector.

Relation between Assessment & Monitoring
 Monitoring is essentially assessing the outcome
of your intervention in a rapidly changing
situation. The purpose of monitoring is to find
out whether the relief programme is effective,
and how strategies should be modified to make
sure that it is.
 To do this, it is necessary to assess or monitor
the programme/project, including the
process (how it is carried out) and the impact it
is having AND changes in the situations,
including population movements, political
changes, and changes in factors affecting
health, nutrition, and socio-economic activities.

The different stages of monitoring
 Preparing and planning the monitoring
system : cost, human and material
resources, means of communication and
reporting ;
 Setting up the indicators checklist :
selection, operationalisation ; Defining
the methods for data collection ;
 Executing the monitoring ; Data
collection and storage ;
 Information analysis ; Reporting ;
 Reorientation, reflection, redesigning…

Relation between Monitoring & Evaluation
 Although M&E are different processes, there are
times when they merge.
 “ There is no universal agreement as to what
ground the terms monitoring, review and
evaluation should cover and there is an element
of personal preference in establishing the
demarcation between them. The important
things is to gain agreement on basic principles
and definitions with those agencies and
individuals you work directly with. “(B.
Broughton & J. Hampshire)

Relation between Monitoring & Evaluation
 Evaluation is the periodic assessment, analysis
and use of data about a project. It uses
information gathered during regular monitoring.
 Evaluation is a one-time event that steps back
from the “fog of operations” to assess whether
the project is doing the right thing, and learn
lessons for future work.
 Evaluation answers questions like: “was the
project design sound? How can it be improved?
What were the unintended consequences of
the project? Did the project cause the
observed change?”

Evaluation Criteria
 The evaluation has to be oriented and based on some
criteria pre-defined which will permit to have a precise
analysis.
 Effectiveness : how far is the project or programme
achieving objectives ?
 Progress : is the project achieving the original objectives, or
have these changed ?
 Efficiency : Does the programme use the least costly
resources to achieve its objectives in the given context ?
 Relevance : what is the value of the intervention in relation to
other priority needs, issues and efforts ?
 Sustainability : will the activity and its impact be likely to
continue when external support is withdrawn, and will it be
replicated or adapted ?
 Connectedness : refers to the need to ensure that activities
of a short-term emergency nature are carried out in a context
which takes longer-term problems into account.
 Impact : looks at the wider project effects on the target
population or the country in general, intended or unintended,
positive and negative, both in the short and long term.

Emerging issues
 Accountability is the responsibility to demonstrate to stakeholders, foremost of whom are
disaster-affected people, that humanitarian assistance complies with agreed standards.
(Sphere 2000)
 Evaluation can increase accountability
 To donors : to meet their demands that resources are being
used effectively, efficiently and for agreed objectives ;
 Of donors to the organisations they fund and work with ;
 To the men and women in whose name these organisations are
working.

Participatory intervention involves the women and men staff and beneficiaries
of a project. . True participation is when those involved are deciding and have
control of the intervention. They decide when it should happen, how it should be
carried out, and by whom. Moreover, if people have a right to assistance, and a
right to dignity, and dignity self-defined, then people have a right to participate,
and humanitarian interventions must involve the people they aspire to help.
 It is important that the development and use of standards does not take attention
away from the beneficiary perspective. Involving the beneficiaries should remain
a fundamental component of the intervention process.


Emerging issues
 Constraints and compromises
 There are ways in which the conditions of working
in an emergency situation affect the process of
the project cycle. These include :
 Shortage of time and rapidly changing situations ;
 The need for short and long-term objectives ;
 Co-ordinating work with different organisations ;
 Managing large resources ; problems of
communication and access ;
 Cross-border operations : working in areas of
disputed sovereignty ;
 Initial shortage of staff and resources ;
 Serious consequences of poor decisions, resulting
directly or indirectly in unnecessary deaths.

Emerging issues
 Learning process
 Learning from experience is a process
which if integrated both personally and
professionally, can be beneficial across all
the activities of the project cycle.
 This process can be visualised as a never-
ending circle, using assessments,
monitoring and evaluations to continually
build upon pre-existing knowledge. This
process enables all qualitative approaches
to be evaluated and contribute to an
increasing knowledge and more effective
organisation..

Conclusion
 Humanitarian assistance tends to involve a very
“top-down “approach, with beneficiaries often
barely in management decisions. Accountability
often tends to be “upwards “ to donors and senior
managers, with very little “ downward “
accountability to beneficiaries. Interventions, if
correctly carried out, with the beneficiaries’
perspective as a central component of the
process, can go some way towards improving the
system’s accountability “ downwards “.
 Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation serves as
an accountability tool to all stakeholders of the
project : private and institutional donors,
beneficiaries, peer and partner organisations etc.,
as well as to internal stakeholders like national
staff, the country management team, support
departments and line management.

RELATING ASSESSMENT, MONITORING AND EVALUATION (2).ppt

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