GOVERNMENT  is moving ahead with efforts to strengthen the capacity of several ministries and this was one of the goals of a four-day “Building on Indicators Training and Evaluation Workshop” conducted at the Guyana International Conference Centre which ended last Friday.

The training was aimed at strengthening the monitoring and evaluation capacity of  more than 30 participating staffers drawn from the education, judiciary, legal affairs, health, housing, tourism, and finance sectors.
Congratulating the participants, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Juan Edghill noted that they were the second such group to undertake this specific programme.  “What we’ve done is not just to chalk up a report card that we’ve had dozens of workshops….one must understand the framework in which all of this is done,” he told the participants of  the second such workshop.
The minister noted that monitoring and evaluation training is actually part of government’s move to be more pro-active in the areas of transparency and accountability, adding that this was a promise made during the 2011 general elections as part of the PPP/C’s manifesto.
Participants were reminded that monitoring and evaluation are important measures necessary to keep track of projects and plans executed by the various arms of government as it seeks to provide services to all Guyanese.

Described as, “a tool in the quest for effective public management,” Minister Edghill said that it was always part of government’s mandate to deliver a better life for all citizens and this should be reflected in the fact that, “Monitoring and evaluation is important in getting us where we want to go.”
The process will enable ministries to track their performance and give the necessary feedback to understand the effectiveness or lack thereof of policies and measures instituted. Minister Edghill added that in addition to crucial feedback among public servants, ministries and the beneficiaries, the process will guide the raising of funds and shaping of policies.
In closing, it was noted that the Ministries of Health and Education alone have been responsible for approximately $50B or close to 30%, when combined with the Housing and Water sectors, of the annual national budget. Hence it is important to keep an accurate record of what was spent, allocated, used and the results obtained.
Minister Edghill also urged participants to share their experiences, learn from them and document their records so that others can learn from them as they move forward.
In brief remarks, Ministry of Finance Director of Budget Sonya Roopnauth said the intensive workshop was intended to build on the first one and improve performance across the participating ministries.
Giving an overview of the workshop, IDEA Managing Director, Dr. Fredrick Martin congratulated the participants along with the Finance Ministry for organising the workshop.  “It was part of the plan by the ministry to build up monitoring and evaluation, improving overall performance.”
Dr. Martin also urged participants to apply their knowledge, which though easy in theory, was actually a bit more difficult in practice. He told them to be “agents of change in your organisations.”
The sessions were facilitated by IDEA International staffers Ana Maria Fernandez Becerra and Marie Helene Boily who also thanked the participants for their hard work which saw the five-day course being completed in four days.
The workshop was based on defining results-based monitoring and evaluation framework, mastering sectoral programme structure, proposing and selecting indicators for programme measurement, validating indicators, setting and validating targets, establishing reference documents for data collection and elaborating reports for feedback and decision making.
The Institute for Development in Economics and Administration (IDEA International Institute) is a private institute recognised as such by the Federal Government of Canada. It operates as a network of regional excellence centers across the world, in Africa, Latin America, North America, and in Asia.