THE CATACLYSM OF AN ARMCHAIR MONITORING EVALUATION MANAGER

ABSTRACT:

Globally there is a growing demand for governments and organizations to be more responsive to the desires of the stakeholders’ for delivery of tangible results. This implies that projects and programs of all kinds and anywhere now attract greater attention and scrutiny; thus the pressure to deliver results becomes more compelling. In order to become more effective and efficient, it becomes compelling to conduct a systematic monitoring of programs, especially to support politicians who must show performance in order to call for more votes, and also to support projects that must demonstrate results in order to get more funding.

Program monitoring affords the management the opportunity to have effective control of the ongoing activities in the field. Donors too, feel very adequately represented in the program implementation if a good monitoring and evaluation system is put in place. These aspirations can be achieved through good program feedback. Unfortunate most programs are monitored not by trained monitoring and evaluation officers, but by researchers and data management specialists. The implication of engaging these groups of human resources as monitoring officers is that a traditional monitoring approach replaces the results-based monitoring system. Ultimately, the program suffers.

Nwizugbe (2014)[1] posited thus; "Monitoring is a routine process, which systematically and regularly checks if program activities are being carried out as planned and the results of the activities (outputs and outcomes) captured with the prescribed tools, and equally reported to management and other stakeholders for evidence based decision making". Program monitoring must begin with baseline assessment, which determines a starting point values for the program. Thereafter, further monitoring would direct the implementers the areas where project resources are desirable. That a project is delivering on the output indicators is not tantamount to program success. It is important to evaluate [10]. Program evaluation provides the snapshot view of the project condition at a point in time, informs the project manager what next should be done.

Where the traditional monitoring and evaluation system is practiced, government, organizations and donors do not get value for the huge sums of money invested in programs’ implementation. Sadly enough, the armchair M&E system is the regular practice of many organizations in Nigeria, especially the government agencies. When an M&E officer who is expected to be the “watch dog” of the project decides to wait in the office for data to be delivered to them monthly, quarterly or biannually; as the case may be, he becomes a data entry staff. This is armchair monitoring system characterized by; never interested in field visit and staff mentoring, ever interested in designing supervision tools, but never interested in their outcomes. In the armchair M&E practice, program effectiveness and efficiency are compromised.

On the other hand, the results-based M&E officer regularly visits the field where activities take place, observes the activities and takes on the spot recording of what goes on. Where necessary; he/she discusses field observations likely going to have negative effects in the intended results right there in the field, with the concerned persons or groups, and provides corrective mentoring to the program implementers and collects feedback.

It is recommended that every organization should avoid engaging officers who practice traditional M&E system. Donors require the results-based monitoring officer to get reliable data and information concerning the project, which they are funding because modern approach to project funding is that it must be results-based. Armchair monitoring and evaluation system cannot deliver on results-based funding.  Many other reasons why the results-base monitoring and evaluation system is preferred were enumerated in this essay.