Yes, this is what we have initiated in three
MS-Nepal partner NGOs. They are Centre for Women Development (CWD),
Women Welfare Association (WWA) and Kirat Yakthung Chumlung (KYC).
However, developing a culture of regular monitoring of impact in
NGOs is not something you simply go home and do after reading an
article in Ekchhin; it is something that you develop. If you want
to make a regular habit of looking for impact, then you should
wait for one to two years to see an impact in people’s thinking
and in the routines of your organisation. Moreover, you need to
give roughly ten percent of your time on impact monitoring. And
the time is easily saved through enhancement of the effectiveness
of your activities, which you are likely to gain by monitoring
them and learning from the results.
Impact monitoring increases accountability among
the stakeholders - whether it may be between beneficiaries and
NGOs, NGOs and Donors or the Donors and Citizens who contribute in
the Donor’s purse. It is a process in which ‘Development profit’
is shared among stakeholders. Development profit is the
improvement in the quality of life of people (beneficiaries) as a
result of development efforts. Impact monitoring is a process that
leads us not to what is ‘correct’ but to the ‘truth’ i.e. what the
reality is. Truths are to be looked upon and observed. It is not
always possible to know the truth by simply asking the people.
People are polite. They will report to you on what they think will
make you happy. But we also need to know about failures. Impact
monitoring is about learning from people and reality - the process
that tells us what works and what does not.
The following activities were carried out as part
of the "MS Institutionalising Impact Monitoring" programme:
a) A two-day Leadership Workshop to introduce the
idea of Institutionalising Impact Monitoring to NGO leaders;
b) A five-day workshop for Field staff on setting
clear objectives and tools for monitoring;
c) A day-long workshop with decision makers.
a) Leadership Workshop:
All leaderships are not change resisters. However,
when we think of introducing something new we have to prepare the
leadership to cooperate with it. Moreover, many people are afraid
of evaluation – especially leaders. They fear that if failures are
reported, donors might stop funding support. But there is nothing
to be afraid of failures. When there is a trust among the
stakeholders, and clear objectives and common strategy failures
can be good lessons to improve programmes. Moreover, for making
monitoring a habit institutions have to contribute some extra
resource. With this objective a two-day workshop was organized for
institutional leaders. Leaders from seven MS-Nepal partner
organizations took part in the workshop.
b) Field Staff Workshop:
Field staff is the frontline representatives of
NGOs. They go to the field. They are the people who talk to
beneficiaries about what was done, why it was done, and what was
expected to come out. Staff members in the field ask beneficiaries
relevant questions and also observe things to explore the
realities. If required, the field staff may some time talk to
outsiders to verify if the change has resulted from the programme.
It is imperative that the field report includes information about
all relevant issues discussed above. Moreover, the field report
should also include information such as what has happened, what
worked, what did not work along with suggestions both to the NGO
and beneficiaries concerned. Information of this kind is very
important to learn why something does work and something does not
and what could be done in the future.
As a result of the first initiative two separate
field staff workshops of eight days each were held in Palpa and
Panchthar in June and September, 2001. Field staff from WWA and
CWD took part in Palpa workshop. Moreover, one DW and two
representatives from BASE took part in Palpa workshop as
observers. With KYC being somewhat unique in its institutional
objectives a separate workshop was organized for their field staff
in Panchthar. However, representatives from Taplejung, Morang and
Sunsari also took part in the workshop. In order to
institutionalise some new skills it will be fair to train more
people from the same organization.
Objectives Clarification : The first half of the
day was dedicated to an introduction to the importance of
monitoring and evaluation, difference between scientific and
participatory evaluation etc. The next one and a half days were
utilized in clarifying the objectives of the organisation. As a
major outcome each participating organization prepared objective
posters (objective diagram) in simple language. The objective
diagram, one each for each participating organization, was
prepared by using some basic guidelines. As has been the practice
they were asked to write their objectives either in present or in
past tense, not in future tense. All the ‘end objectives’ were
kept on the top and all the ‘activities ‘at the bottom. Level wise
objectives appeared in between the activities and the end
objectives. Sufficient arrows were used to show the
cause-and-effect relationship. Different punctuation marks were
placed in the respective objective box upon doubt.
Tools and Techniques: In order to improve the
capacity of field staff in conducting field evaluation it is
essential for them to develop skills in selecting and using
suitable tools to evaluate the specific objective in the poster.
With this objective five days were spent on identifying tools.
Participants could gain both theoretical knowledge and practical
skills in the use of tools. Most of the tools were selected from
PRA tool kit. Moreover, participants had a one-day field visit on
the third day of the five-day workshop on tools.
c) Adjusting Organization:
In order to make monitoring and evaluation a
regular process it requires several necessary arrangements in the
organization. Some of them include setting-up of monitoring
committee, development of job description of the staff who
conducts field evaluation, reporting format, meetings, decisions,
response to suggestions, etc. At the end of the eight-day workshop
with field staff a one-day workshop was organized with decision
makers to discuss which adjustments must be made within the
organisation in order to make it responsive to reports from the
field which assess impact, report on successes and failures and
provide suggestions for improvements.
‘Making it a habit to see if it works’
‘Institutionalising Impact Monitoring’ is
the technical term for ‘Making it a habit to see if it works’.
‘Institutionalising’ just means that
something has become a habit in an organisation.
By ‘Impact’ we mean whether poor
people’s lives have actually been improved – whether development
works as intended.
And by ‘Monitoring’ we mean looking at
it frequently – not just when there is a big evaluation exercise
once very few years.
So ‘Institutionalising Impact Monitoring’ means
that organisations working with development make it a habit to
frequently check whether all the activities actually improve the
lives of the beneficiaries. It is about giving organisations ears
and eyes to hear and see and then learn.
Workshop Presentation
If you want to get an impression of the
eight-day workshop, then MS can provide you with a CD with a 45
minutes PowerPoint presentation at cost price. You need a computer
with a PowerPoint programme to see the presentations. This
programme is found in the Microsoft Office pack. For CDs contact
Purushottam Poudel at MS Nepal.
If you think
that money and other resources for ‘development’ are raised for
addressing the needs of poor people; 
