– at five-day Monitoring and Evaluation Workshop

MINISTER of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh Monday highlighted the need for individual responsibility to Senior Programme Managers and Divisional Managers of various ministries at a five-day Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) Workshop at the Guyana International Conference Centre.

The Ministry of Finance’s workshop targeted managers from the Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Human Services, Labour, Health, Education, Tourism, Housing, Water, Legal Affairs and Public Works Ministries, as well as the Parliament Office. The workshop will focus on designing and building of a results-based M & E system.

Briefly reviewing his address to permanent secretaries and their deputies on November 15 at their workshop, the minister reiterated the need for more effective management.
Minister Singh emphasised their responsibility for mobilising and managing resources and their teams, with emphasis on ultimately delivering results to their superiors. This, he pointed out, is not different at any level, whether their respective areas are large or small.
“Whatever the scope and scale of your responsibility, the issue of managing more effectively, of delivering more results in a timelier, effective manner, is one you can’t escape from,” the minister emphasised.
He said that government has recognised the need to actively promote more effective management within the system, and pointed out this would rest with the workers and individuals within the system who have the responsibility to ensure that they do their part. A more robust system to measure this would help, the minister noted.
He pointed out that even as results are measured, “the system for results based management must be one that also sets targets, and measures the results of the individuals.”
Emphasis can be placed on achieving this by constant monitoring and measuring the indicators or feedback which would set the targets needed he said. “There has to be a greater emphasis on measuring results so that we can manage more effectively.”

The minister observed that this performance based management in the M & E framework will be applied when government reports to parliamentary committees on sectoral performances and the Cabinet sub-committees. Additionally, ministries would hold the employees accountable for their performance by setting annual targets and monitoring feedback against those targets.
Minister Singh also pointed to individual responsibility which he noted was essential, since all government workers are active participants. “A good start would be for you to do more…if you go to work early, work hard, work a full day, go to work every day, make sure you discharge your responsibilities every day diligently…you are contributing to a more efficient industry.”
The workshop is being conducted by Dr. Ray Rist, a renowned world authority on developing monitoring and evaluation systems and co-founder of the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET).
Dr. Rist said that the current workshop is a condensed version and deals with public policy and evaluation at a diploma level. The participants will work in groups and develop presentations.
“This is how you start to build an evidence based public sector,” Dr. Rist explained, pointing out that evidence is what the 21st Century world needs for policy and decision making.
Dr Rist will focus on topics which cover the understanding of the evaluation context and the programme theory of change; developing evaluation questions and starting the design matrix; selecting designs, data collection, data analysis and presenting results.
This is part of an ongoing series of capacity building initiatives on monitoring and evaluation across government which is being led by the Ministry of Finance. The aim is to address demands and pressures for improving the lives of citizens and public management.
Improvements may include greater accountability and transparency and enhanced effectiveness of interventions. M & E is a management tool to help track progress and demonstrate the impact of development projects, programmes and policies.
IPDET is an executive training programme that aims to provide managers and practitioners with the generic tools required to evaluate development policies, programmes, and projects at the local, national, regional, and global levels. The programme features in-depth workshops, taught by renowned international faculty members drawn from Southern and Northern organisations.

(GINA)