MINISTER of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh opened the tenth session of the mini-International Programme for Development Evaluation training workshop (IPDET) as part of Government’s continued effort to ensure value for money.

The five-day workshop which commenced yesterday at the Guyana International Conference Centre will conclude on May 15.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Singh expressed his appreciation to be a part of the event and lauded the participants for being present.

“You are a part of an ongoing effort on the part of the government, to build strong monitoring and evaluation capacity. I am pleased that a wide cross-section of agencies is represented, including not only government ministries and departments, but also frontline service providers.”
The Finance Minister noted that the range of participants reflects the fact that the task of monitoring and evaluation are tasks that literally permeate every level of activity.
“If you think about it really, Monitoring and Evaluation is happening at every level of operation, from the highest level of policy making to the most frontline level of operation …and if you think about it too, a sound and strong monitoring and evaluation system redounds to the benefit of all of us.”

The Finance Minister reiterated his point by noting that people live in a world where resources are necessarily scarce and where constant competing choices have to be made and decisions pondered on how best to deploy the scarce resources in order to most effectively achieve the outcomes that are desired.
“This is a challenge that confronts us at the level of front line delivery as it does on the level of micro.”
Likewise, Dr. Singh said resources allocated to the Ministry of Finance must be carefully monitored and evaluated to ensure a multitude of economic, and social objectives are achieved.
“We want a country that is going to continue to grow, and we want a country where every social indicator will continue to improve in every sector, we want the infrastructure of our country expanding all within an ideally measurable framework.”
Hence Dr. Singh added that the task before everyone who manages government resources is to see how best they are allocated in order to achieve an optimal mix of outcome.
“You are part of a grand enterprise that the government has embarked upon, it’s not about getting a certificate, this is about an endeavour by this government, to ensure that we get a better government it does not mean the 65 people in the parliament by that I mean better policing and better teaching, better delivery of social services, stronger public health care service, and better and more effective discharge of every single public sector responsibility.”
The Minister further charged the participants to make the best of the training, and to return to their respective sectors with the knowledge to establish a better monitoring and evaluation system.
“I hope you will go back enriched with what you would have discovered and imbued with a curiosity to establishing a monitoring and evaluation system, and ensuring that having set up that system you will work to ensure that resources are deployed in the most effective way and that we achieve the optimum results.”

Meanwhile the main presenter for the workshop, Ray Rist in his comments to the participants said he hopes the five days will be enlightening for them.

“What I am giving you is a graduate seminar, it’s what we offer at the Carlton University in Canada, you can earn half of a graduate diploma, this is a graduate level, it’s not a vacation, it’s going to intellectual work, challenging, when you leave here you will be equipped to ask questions and think differently.”
Rist added that emphasis would be placed on moving monitoring and evaluation from feelings and intuition.
“…For example why are we doing this project and what data we have to support evidence based decision making. Feeling an intuition is not how you govern a nation, we have to have data and evidence and we will be talking about how to use evidence in your work.”
Rist is a renowned world authority on developing monitoring and evaluation systems and co-founder of the IPDET, 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)