the

M&E Guide
Introducing
Section

Managing for Impact in Rural Development

A Guide for Project M&E

1
 Table of Contents of Section 1
1.1 About the Guide 3

1.2 The Basis of the Guide 4

1.2.1 Enhancing and Understanding Impact 4
1.2.2 Supporting the Rural Poor 5
1.2.3 Increasing Participation 5
1.2.4 Improving Management by Strengthening M&E 6

1.3 Using the Guide 8

1.3.1 Navigating the Guide 8
1.3.2 Making this Guide Work for You 8

1.4 The Nature of IFAD-supported Projects 10

1.4.1 The Project Cycle for IFAD-supported Projects 10
1.4.2 Key Stakeholders and their M&E Role 12
1.4.3 The Specific Importance of Government Processes 13

1.5 Implications of Changing Approaches to Development 15

Further Reading 16

Key Messages

• This Guide has been written to help project

managers and M&E staff improve the quality of
M&E in IFAD-supported projects.
• The Guide focuses on how M&E can support project management
and engage project stakeholders in understanding project
progress, learning from achievements and problems, and agreeing
on how to improve both strategy and operations.
• The main functions of M&E are: ensuring improvement-oriented
critical reflection, learning to maximise the impact of rural devel-
opment projects, and showing this impact to be accountable.
This Section is for
• The Guide is meant to improve M&E in IFAD-supported projects,
• all those contributing to project M&E
(managers, M&E staff, consultants, as a study found that most projects have a fairly low standard of
IFAD/cooperating institution staff). It famil- M&E.
iarises them with the Guide’s main ideas • The Guide provides comprehensive advice on how to set up and
and what the Guide can offer them.
implement an M&E system, plus background ideas that underpin
the suggestions.

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1.1 About the Guide

The aim of IFAD and its partnerships is to enable the rural poor to overcome poverty. This
puts social mobilisation and participation of the poor upfront in conceiving and imple-
menting development initiatives. If they are not, then relevance and sustainability of impact
will be compromised. The collective experiences of partnerships between the poor, the state,
NGOs, and funding organisations need to be continually assessed in order to take systematic
corrective action. This is the prime purpose of monitoring and evaluation.

This Guide is about using monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to improve the impact of IFAD-
supported projects. The focus is on a learning approach to M&E that uses achievements and
problems for better decision-making and accountability. It requires creating an M&E system
that helps primary stakeholders, implementing partners and project staff learn together in
order to improve their development interventions on a continual basis. Because the ultimate
objective is to ensure the maximum possible benefit for the rural poor, they are the ones best
placed to assess project impact. The Guide suggests ideas for implementing this and other
forms of participatory M&E.

M&E is a management tool for those who manage anything from a small project component
to an entire project. Setting up a good M&E system requires careful thinking about overall
project management and, particularly, how to manage the linkages between different project
elements and partners. Therefore the Guide focuses on practical ideas that can help to manage
for impact. Many of the issues faced in project management or when setting up a useful M&E
system are affected by the original project design. So, the Guide deals with good project design
and management practices – but only from an M&E perspective.

The Guide will help project implementers, including primary stakeholders:

• clarify what impact a project is expected to have for the rural poor and how this will be
achieved;

• decide how progress and impact will be assessed;

• gather and analyse the necessary information for tracking progress and impact;

• explain the reasons for success and failure and agree on how to use this understanding to
improve future action.

In a nutshell, this is what M&E is all about.

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The Guide has been written for four main audiences:

• Managers: the people responsible for managing the various aspects of project implementa-
tion. This includes the project director, managers of project components and the responsi-
ble managers of partner or contracting organisations who are implementing a specific ele-
ment of the project;

• M&E staff: the staff of a project or implementing partners and contractors who have respon-
sibilities for setting up and/or implementing M&E systems;

• Consultants: people providing external assistance on project design, M&E and information
management;

• IFAD and cooperating institution staff: anyone in these organisations who is providing guid-
ance, supervision or support to the project.

Due to the many audiences, the Guide has been structured to provide readers with different
levels of detail appropriate to their needs. To know which section is appropriate to the tasks
you face, see “Navigating the Guide”, at the beginning of the Guide and Section 1.3.

People often feel overwhelmed and confused by M&E due to the many ways to undertake it
and also because it is often assumed that anyone can “just do it”. This Guide recognises that
M&E is a professional field in its own right. Indeed, people are not expected to be agronomists,
veterinarians, irrigation engineers or accountants when they have no training and no experi-
ence. Yet it is often unfairly expected that anyone with minimal support should be able to do a
good job at M&E. The Guide aims to provide both the key concepts and the practical details
needed to make M&E work.

The ideas in this Guide are not a mandatory M&E system with which all projects must comply.
The Guide describes what is considered – and has proven to be – good practice in project M&E,
with examples from experiences in many different contexts. You will not find, for example, a
set of common categories of impact or fixed sets of indicators or a list of indispensable
methods. Having options is critical, as each IFAD-supported project is unique. Nevertheless,
good M&E does need to meet a minimum set of requirements and standards. This Guide will
discuss these requirements and standards, while indicating where options are possible.

No document, including this Guide, can hope to solve all problems of inadequate M&E. Other
supporting measures are needed, including training, technical assistance, incentives and
adequate resource allocation. In particular, improvement-oriented critical reflection is needed
by those involved. These topics are discussed in detail in Sections 7 and 8.

1.2 The Basis of the Guide

1.2.1 Enhancing and Understanding Impact
Just what is “impact” in rural development? IFAD defines impact as changes - positive or
negative, intended or unintended - in the lives of the rural people as they and their partners
perceive, as well as sustainability-enhancing change in their environment, to which the IFAD-
supported project has contributed.

Impact is often used to refer to the highest goal-level achievements of a project, such as
“improved food security” and “increased household income”. However, any significant effect
on poverty takes several years to emerge, longer than most IFAD-supported projects.

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Accordingly, IFAD uses impact in a broader sense to refer to a wide range of observable
changes that help reduce poverty. For example, “adoption of improved farming techniques” is
an important intermediate impact. So are “building linkages between local committees,
fishermen’s associations and formal management bodies in ways that have ensured their
participation in decision-making processes affecting their wellbeing”. Impact is clearly a broad
concept.

Local ownership and building capacity are often critical interim impacts that encourage self-
management for development amongst the poor. So is the reduction of vulnerability. A main
cause of poverty, vulnerability is not just about food insecurity or the inability to meet basic
needs. It concerns people’s inability to influence decisions affecting their lives, negotiate
collectively for better terms of trade and services, stop corruption and violence, and make
organisations – government or non-governmental, public or private – accountable to them.
Impact has many faces.

The key idea in this Guide is to use M&E to help manage the resources and activities of a
project to enhance impacts along a continuum, from short term to long term. This requires
clarity in the project about the desired goals, and vigilance to understand if lower-level
outputs are contributing to higher-level goals ones, amidst other influencing factors. It also
requires conscious effort to learn to identify corrective actions that could further enhance
impact.

1.2.2 Supporting the Rural Poor

Working on the details of project management, design and M&E may sometimes push the
rural poor to the background. But remember that this is the prime reason why development
interventions receive IFAD funding. More than 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty –
one out of every five people. It is the 900 million of these who live in rural areas that IFAD
funding aims to help. Project staff and partners can claim success when society’s most margin-
alised people themselves indicate how they have benefited directly.

To enable this, M&E must build on existing inspiration, creativity and motivation. This means
creating opportunities for the poor to make their own judgements about the value of projects
and how to improve them. Good M&E can provide evidence of general impact. It can also
capture human stories of personal change that are needed for governments and their
constituents to continue supporting rural development.

Keeping track of the details of project implementation and gathering good information about
what has been achieved are very important. But in the end, what makes the difference is how
people interact, how ideas are shared and developed, and – in so doing – how people are
motivated and supported to learn and contribute to the best of their ability. Rural people’s
aspirations and their own development processes must be at the heart of managing for impact
and M&E.

1.2.3 Increasing Participation

In May 2000, an IFAD workshop on impact achievement stated, “that participation means
more than just beneficiary contribution to project execution, rather that it should encompass
all the stakeholders and be formalised at all stages of the project cycle”. This clearly includes
M&E. IFAD-supported projects entail varying degrees of participation. So, developing partici-
patory M&E systems means that, once the basics of M&E are understood, participatory M&E is
defined and ways are worked out to introduce it. This is a basic principle of the Guide.

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Generally, widespread recognition of weak M&E systems has led to a search for alternatives
that are more inclusive of primary stakeholders. For example, project staff in Latin America
had such a strong feeling that their monitoring system was performing only a control
function that they discarded the entire system midway through the project. They developed a
new M&E system based on the principles of participation, decentralisation and flexibility. In
another project, in southern Africa, contracts between communities and the project formed
the basis of transparency about the rights and responsibilities attached to participation –
including M&E. The Guide describes many aspects of participatory M&E.

Participation applies not only to primary stakeholders. It means giving more space to grass-
roots organisations, banks and other private enterprises, and others, as implementing partners.
The role of project management is one of facilitation between diverse partners, rather than
one of steering from a central decision-making position. Each stakeholder group has its own
information needs and ways of working. This includes providing feedback to funding agencies.
Such information does not have to be collected, analysed and fed back by primary stake-
holders. An M&E system run entirely by and for primary stakeholders is not sufficient to meet
all project needs. The M&E system is for all stakeholders.

1.2.4 Improving Management by Strengthening M&E

M&E is not – and cannot be – a substitute for good project management. For M&E to succeed,
it needs to be driven by managers’ needs for information, their use of the information and
their desire to create a learning environment. M&E in any project will therefore only ever be
as good as the quality of overall management.

Yet M&E is indispensable for good management. The Guide presents how M&E can fulfil this
function. While the Guide touches on the broad idea of managing for impact, it is not a
general guide to all aspects of project management.

Inadequate M&E has two consequences:

• limited learning by implementers about the project’s progress, opportunities and problems;
consequently, the limited ability of those involved to correct operations and strategy, lead-
ing to sub-optimal impact on poverty reduction;

• unclear impact performance, so limited accountability to funding agencies and to primary

stakeholders of projects in terms of their stated goals. As one project consultant put it, “If
there is no method for tracking activities or problems or the impact of activities, how can
projects justify their existence?”

A collection of IFAD studies on project experiences with M&E highlighted a series of problems
(see Box 1-1). Some problems have external causes that lie beyond the control of the project
and restrict project activities, such as disasters or institutional environment. Others have
conceptual causes, which revolve, for example, around diverging and unclear perceptions of
M&E, methodology and analysis. The rest have operational causes due, for instance, to insuffi-
cient personnel or the (non-)integration of M&E by project staff and other stakeholders.

M&E feeds the whole process of assessment both of change in the lives of the poor and of the
performance of IFAD and other stakeholders in relation to their obligations, functions and
relationships. It looks not only at the specific project or programme but also contributes to
advocacy, policy dialogue and updating understanding on poverty and its reduction. Effective
M&E can:

• provide managers with information they need for day-to-day decisions in the ever-changing

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contexts of projects;

• provide key stakeholders with the information needed to guide the project strategy towards
achieving the goal and objectives;

• provide early warning of problematic activities and processes that need corrective action;

• help empower primary stakeholders by creating opportunities for them to reflect critically on
the project’s direction and help decide on improvements;

• build understanding and capacity amongst those involved in the project;

• motivate and stimulate learning amongst those committed to making the project a success;

• assess progress and so enable accountability requirements to be met.

Box 1-1. Common problems with M&E in IFAD-supported projects

In 2000, a series of studies on M&E1 howed that few IFAD-supported projects have monitoring systems (including the undertaking of
studies and ongoing evaluation) that are able to provide timely, relevant and good quality information on project reach and impact on
the well-being and livelihood strategies of the target group. Impact assessment in particular has not been institutionalised at either the
project or corporate level in IFAD. Government departments frequently have no systematic evaluation system, but instead simply investi-
gate projects attracting official concern. Project staff know that when questions are asked about the impact of specific activities, the
reports presented are a summary of general impressions rather than systematic and thorough analysis. The following common problems
were identified:

• inadequate understanding of and attention to M&E in project design and subsequently inadequate resource allocation and hierarchical
organisation of decision-making and analysis;
• lack of commitment tto monitoring by project staff and implementing partners. This leads to delays in implementing monitoring
systems and to lack of information use by project management;
• monitoring seen as an obligation imposed from outside, with project staff mechanically filling in forms for managers and the project
managers seeing monitoring only as a form of data collection in the process of writing reports for donors;
• irrelevant and poor quality information produced through monitoring that focused on physical and financial aspects and ignores project
outreach, effect and impact;
• almost no attention to monitoring and evaluation needs and potentials of other stakeholders such as beneficiaries and community-based
and other local cooperating institutions;
• very few internal project reviews or ongoing evaluations, with adjustments triggered mainly by external evaluations or supervisions;
• widespread lack of integration and cooperation between project M&E and project management (e.g., via the AWPB and logframe),
with no clear, mutually agreed-upon guidelines;
• M&E documentation that does not address or resolve identified problems;
• over-ambitious monitoring systems, with too much being asked in terms of information and methods;
• poor use of participatory and qualitative M&E methods, due to limited capacity and inability to see the need for such information;
• M&E staff with insufficient relevant skills and experiences, and making little effort to fill the capacity gap;
• differentiation of monitoring from evaluation activities, with evaluation being contracted out. This leads to M&E not being an integrated
system for improvement-oriented critical reflection.

1Ocampo, A. 2000. Estudio regional sobre seguimiento y evaluación: La experiencia de los proyectos FIDA en América Latina. Report prepared as
part of the IFAD-OE Thematic Study on Monitoring and Evaluation Systems Support. Rome: IFAD. Rahojarison-Busson, M. 2000. Analysis of
existing IFAD Evaluation Reports on Monitoring and Evaluation Systems. Report prepared as part of the IFAD-OE Thematic Study on Monitoring
and Evaluation Systems Support. Rome: IFAD. Ravnborg, H.M. 2000. Strengthening IFAD's Support to Develop Efficient and Effective Monitoring
and Evaluation Reports. A draft synthesis report. Rome: IFAD. Vela Mantilla, G.E. 2000. Estudio regional sobre metodologías de seguimiento y evalu-
ación en América Latina. Report prepared as part of the IFAD-OE Thematic Study on Monitoring and Evaluation Systems Support. Rome: IFAD.
Zaki E, 2000. Analysis of IFAD Experience on the Evaluation of the Monitoring and Evaluation Systems. Rome: IFAD.

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1.3 Using the Guide

1.3.1 Navigating the Guide
Because this Guide has been written for all those people who have specific yet different M&E-
related responsibilities and tasks, it has been produced as a set of “modules” or sections (see
Box 1-2). This makes it possible for you to focus on the material that is relevant for your needs
at a particular point in time. You might want to copy parts of the Guide on particular M&E
functions and share them with colleagues and partners.

The Guide contains five tools to help you find your way around:

1. a detailed table of contents (see beginning of Guide), plus a section-specific table of contents
inside each booklet;

2. a road map of the eight core Sections of the Guide (see Figure 1-1);

3. an audience-specific list of recommended sections for specific M&E responsibilities (see

“Navigating the Guide” at the beginning of the Guide);

4. a detailed index at the end of the Guide;

5. the first pages of Sections 2 to 8 are a summary of the section and can help you decide what
part of the section is most relevant.

Figure 1-1. A road map of the core sections of the Guide

1. Introducing
the M&E Guide

Basic Section

2. Using M&E
to Manage for Impact

Key Building Block Key Building Block Key Building Block

3. Linking Project Design, 4. Setting up 8. Reflecting Critically to

Annual Planning and M&E the M&E System Improve Action

Operationalising M&E

5. Deciding What to
Monitor and Evaluate

6. Gathering, Managing
and
Communicating Information

7. Putting in Place the

Necessary
Capacities and Conditions

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Box 1-2. List of booklets in the Guide

Section 1. Introducing the M&E Guide Annex A. Glossary of M&E Concept and Terms

Section 2. Using M&E to Manage for Impact Annex B. Annotated Example of a Project Logframe Matrix and
Logframe Explanation (relates to Section 3)
Section 3. Linking Project Design, Annual Planning and M&E
Annex C. Annotated Example of an M&E Matrix (relates to
Section 4. Setting up the M&E System
Section 5)
Section 5. Deciding What to Monitor and Evaluate
Annex D. Methods for Monitoring and Evaluation (relates to
Section 6. Gathering, Managing and Communicating Information Sections 3, 6 and 8)

Section 7. Putting in Place the Necessary Capacities and Annex E. Sample Job Descriptions and Terms of Reference for
Conditions Key M&E Tasks (relates to Section 7)

Section 8. Reflecting Critically to Improve Action

1.3.2 Making this Guide Work for You

Can a book of good M&E ideas really make a difference? No. Written words alone can never
change practice. It is the people using the ideas who will make the difference. In other words,
this Guide is not a guarantee that all project M&E will proceed smoothly. More is needed than
a simple reading. You – as manager, M&E coordinator, consultant, cooperating institution or
IFAD staff member – will need to take the ideas and adapt them to your own contexts, compe-
tencies and concerns. This will inevitably require a period of trial-and-error, the hallmark of an
adaptive project.

A new project faces the largest task of all. Every aspect of the learning process has to be
conceived in both general and operational terms, before being tried out. New projects, as well
as ongoing ones, should not be discouraged by descriptions of good and comprehensive M&E
systems. Small steps can be made in triggering and improving project learning – with signifi-
cant results – before a fuller system is in place. Thus the Guide offers simple options for those
taking first steps, alongside more sophisticated options for those who are further down the
M&E path.

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1.4 The Nature of IFAD-supported Projects

In terms of managing for impact and setting up the M&E system, any IFAD project will be
influenced by three aspects: the project cycle, the main stakeholders and their inter-relation-
ships, and the relationship of the project to government processes of the lending country.

1.4.1 The Project Cycle for IFAD-Supported Projects

“Project cycle” is the name for various steps in the life of a funded intervention – from the
initial idea to the phasing out of operations and the final evaluation. All IFAD-supported
projects follow a particular cycle of steps (see Figure 1-2). Several of these happen before the
project is even operating.

Figure 1-2. The project cycle for IFAD-supported projects

Regional Strategy

Country Strategy - COSOP

- inception
Early Project - formulation
Design - appraisal
- negotiation
- approval

- loan agreement
Start-Up - effectiveness
- start-up workshop
- stakeholder
mobilisation
and contracting

Main Implementation Phase

Annual cycle: Mid-Term

- AWPB Stocktaking
- planning - MTR/MTE
- implementing - change
- M&E - redesign
- supervision

... gradual phase-out/handover

- interim evaluation
Completion - completion report
or Follow-up - loan closing
- completion evaluation

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COSOP Typically, the project process starts with an initial intention to work in a region, as discussed in
a Country Strategic Opportunities Paper (COSOP). This phase involves IFAD staff, consultants and
key government departments. They examine their strategy for that country and the needs to be
addressed, based on experiences and current government and donor strategies. The COSOP that
is produced includes two or three ideas for a future project. No M&E-related issues are
broached.

Inception Internal IFAD discussions focus on the ideas from the COSOP and produce an inception paper.
This paper describes what appears to be the best idea from the COSOP and potential strategic
areas of action. As in the previous step, no M&E-related issues are broached.

Early Project The formulation phase is critical to project design. It involves a three- to four-week in-country
Design consultancy by a team that includes national officials and IFAD-contracted consultants. The
formulation phase results in an appraisal report. The appraisal report is the documented descrip-
tion of the project aims and strategy. Recommendations are made for the responsible govern-
ment department and about the possible implementing strategies, agencies and organisations.
The appraisal report should and usually does describe the suggested M&E strategy, key opera-
tional relationships and pre-negotiations, logical framework matrix, draft annual work plan and
budget (AWPB), the design of the start-up phase, and a matrix detailing responsibilities. This
report is crucial in laying the basis for the overall M&E system and approach.

Start-Up The start-up phase may commence up to two years after appraisal, and it is inaugurated with a
short start-up workshop. Then project management takes hold of the project idea, as outlined
in the appraisal report, and starts mobilising partners and resources for implementation. In this
phase, the implementation unit and collaboration arrangements are put in place, initial
staff/partner training can take place (such as on M&E), the logframe matrix is updated to the
current context, and M&E consultants are commonly hired to help design the operational M&E
details for the project. Partner agencies are brought in to contribute to the development of the
M&E process. If the loan agreement has been delayed, then the project can use the Special
Operations Facility to start early activities. However thorough the appraisal report, it is not
detailed enough to guide the M&E strategy during implementation. Many more weeks of work
are required to develop operational plans. Start-up provides the most critical opportunity for
the project partnership to detail the M&E processes and procedures.

Implementation It is during the main implementation phase that projects reap the benefits of a good M&E
process, which feeds plan adjustments via reflection, annual project reviews with primary stake-
holders, and supervision missions from the cooperating institution. Adjustments are made to
project operations and M&E. Implementation is guided by annual work plans and budgets
(AWPBs), and is recorded in quarterly and mid-year reports.

Mid-Term Review The mid-term review (or evaluation) is a critical learning moment for the implementing partners,
when more strategic changes of direction are identified and agreed upon. Implementation plans
are adapted and design assumptions are discussed and validated and/or modified. Participants
in this phase are staff from the project and implementing partners, representatives of the target
groups, cooperating institutions, external consultants and, at times, IFAD staff.

Phasing out During phasing-out, the basis for sustainability of impacts is consolidated. Reflections with
primary stakeholders should identify key changes in local people’s lives, as well as the potential
sustainability of impact.

Completion The completion phase offers the opportunity to draw lessons, either for a project extension or for
other initiatives on similar themes elsewhere. New insights on rural development change are
gained by reflecting on the project impact and process as compared to its initial design. This is
an important review process as a considerable number of projects move on to a second phase,
and reorientation will be based on learning from their past.

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1.4.2 Key Stakeholders and their M&E Role

A rural development project is located in a web of relationships between many different stake-
holders. Most IFAD-supported projects deal with eight key groups: local people, people’s
organisations, project management, implementing partners, cooperating institutions, respon-
sible government departments, consultants and IFAD staff. These relationships need to be
established, understood and managed well so that each stakeholder group can make the best
possible contribution.

Primary Stakeholders – the Local People

Local women, men and children are pivotal to a project and its learning process. They are the
primary stakeholders as their needs are the focus of the project and their views on impact are
what count. This is a very diverse group and most projects specify target groups, such as
“marginalised farmers”, “smallholders” or “the landless” in the project area. Local people are
increasingly acting as full partners in project initiatives, rather than passive beneficiaries. Most
projects aim to strengthen self-reliant development, so seek local participation in project
design and implementation and assessment of the findings. If project M&E builds on existing
communication and learning processes, it can enhance and enrich these.

Grassroots Organisations

Grassroots organisations, at community and higher levels, are important partners. They
provide invaluable insights on priorities and appropriate processes during the design phase,
and undertake some of the implementation of the project and/or M&E. One of their most
valuable roles is in facilitating participatory processes during implementation. Project manage-
ment works with grassroots organisations to create opportunities for local people to participate
meaningfully in M&E activities, such as through participatory baseline studies, local impact
assessments or annual project reviews. Working with them increases local ownership of the
project and thus the likelihood of a sustained impact.

Project Management

Project management is the organisational pivot for implementation. Each project organises
management in its own way. One project might have only five staff in the management unit
and with most management functions (including M&E) decentralised to implementing
partners. Another may have a large, more centralised management and implementation unit
with, for example, 20 M&E staff. Local community members can be active in project manage-
ment. Project management is responsible for ensuring that the project as a whole has clear
and relevant plans, reviewing and approving work, and ensuring financial flows and reporting.
The project achieves its intended impacts if management adequately supports the imple-
menting partners to deliver quality work. The project director and M&E coordinator are
responsible for establishing and operating the reflection and learning processes and for
reporting to supervising bodies, funding agencies and local people.

Implementing Partners

Projects are implemented not only through grassroots organisations but also through govern-
ment services, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and commercial operators, such as
banks. In more participatory projects, these groups often have a catalytic and advisory
function since decision-making lies with the primary stakeholders. Project management may
ask for bids before selecting implementation partners, or these partners may be already
specified in the appraisal report. Partners are guided by contracts on their responsibilities,
standards of work and style of operation. All partners are responsible for monitoring the activi-
ties they implement. Sometimes evaluations are subcontracted to assess longer-term impacts or
to institutionalise annual participatory impact assessments.

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Cooperating (or Supervising) Institutions

Once a basic project design is in place and the responsibilities of government agencies are
clarified, a cooperating institution (CI) is contracted. Its role is to supervise the loan process
and provide technical and financial support to the project during implementation. It should
also provide methodological M&E support. CIs report project progress, problems and recom-
mended actions to the funding agencies, including IFAD. Common CIs are UNOPS (United
Nations Office for Project Services), the World Bank and regional development banks. For
some projects, IFAD does the supervision directly. CIs may also be co-funders.

Responsible Government Ministry

Each project is placed under the responsibility of a ministry, which is often the Ministry of
Agriculture or Finance (or equivalent). This ministry is the loan holder and is frequently the
seat of the steering committee for the project if one is created. It often appoints the project
director in consultation with IFAD. It is usually a co-funder of the project. The responsible
government ministry does not always play an active role in project M&E, but receives all
project reports. Key ministry officials will need to agree on any significant changes to a
project’s strategy, should this option emerge during an MTR/MTE (mid-term review or evalua-
tion) or as a result of a supervision mission. Project-based M&E is critical for any feedback to
policymakers.

Consultants/Technical Advisors

Most projects use several externally contracted consultants or technical advisors at various
moments. These consultants, in discussion with IFAD, design the project and thus greatly
influence its focus and mode of operation, including laying down the basis of project M&E. At
start-up, they also often play a key role in designing various aspects of the M&E system and
related capacity-building efforts. Consultants are contracted by IFAD for MTRs/MTEs and often
for interim evaluations.

IFAD

Most project directors will know at least two people in IFAD: the country portfolio manager
(CPM) and the Office of Evaluation officer responsible for the country in which the project is
located. Contact is mostly with the CPM, both directly and via the CI. The CPM guides the
project through IFAD internal procedures up to implementation, and facilitates all relation-
ships during the project life, including consultant contracting. The CPM’s role in M&E lies in
overseeing the quality of the project design, including the M&E plan. The CPM seeks ways to
embed IFAD’s priorities during implementation, such as participation of primary stakeholders,
and often organises MTRs or interim evaluations. CPMs participate on IFAD’s behalf in the
project management partnership. For some projects, they are involved in direct supervision.

1.4.3 The Specific Importance of Government Processes

Of particular influence on project partnerships and processes is “the government”. It is to
governments that loans are given, with governments that ideas are developed, and mainly
through governments that implementation takes place. Governments are the agencies respon-
sible for impact achievement of the loan, are partners in design, and are often the home of
project management.

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Three levels of government are critical to most IFAD-supported projects:

1. national level: for COSOP, project design, loan negotiations, and loan repayment;

2. regional level (district, province, state): for supporting implementation with management
decisions and memorandums of understanding with government organisations operating
at a regional level;

3. local level: for implementation by agencies in local government.

Besides these different levels, each project is likely to deal with various ministries, as most
projects are active in several sectors. Special project steering groups may be created within the
government system to coordinate actions and policies related to the project, although
membership may include others, including primary stakeholders.

Working with government as a critical partner means dealing with its capacities, limitations
and the politics to which all governments worldwide are subjected. Many projects must
handle frequent policy changes and staff discontinuity over time. Some may be faced with the
challenge of different levels of government working with different policy priorities. Policy
changes can create havoc for projects if, for example, the mandate of a key department
changes. Project management is rarely an autonomous unit but often operates in a ministry
with its own specific ways of working. This can create considerable tensions if the lines of
responsibility and those of decision-making power are blurred or diverge.

From an M&E perspective, government may require integrating the project monitoring and
learning systems with those it currently uses. If these are inadequate, then it may require
efforts to set up M&E that extend beyond the project.

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1.5 Implications of Changing Approaches to Development

The thinking behind development intervention is constantly evolving. Many projects used to
focus on expert input to design infrastructure- and technology-development oriented projects,
often with little input from primary stakeholders. Over time, attention has moved towards
more participation of primary stakeholders in project design and towards strategies that build
capacity and empower people to direct and manage their own development ideas.

Such changes require all stakeholders to accept the consequences of participation, including
uncertainty, politicisation and shared decision-making. The idea of blueprint planning has
given way to more flexible, process-oriented and adaptive approaches to project implementa-
tion. More recently, the trends of decentralisation and privatisation have led to more dispersed
models of project implementation. This means less emphasis on centralised project manage-
ment units, with implementation being managed by primary stakeholders and private contrac-
tors.

These changes have five significant implications for M&E:

1. M&E can play a role recognised to help and empower local people to control their own
development, with critical self-evaluations of collective experiences reinforcing their
capacity for self-management. M&E can thus direct information systems not only upward
but also downward;

2. more adaptive and flexible approaches to project implementation actually require better
M&E systems, as the whole model is based on being responsive to feedback from primary
stakeholders and to changing circumstances;

3. monitoring and evaluating capacity development and empowerment-oriented initiatives

require different approaches to M&E than assessing infrastructure development or tech-
nology transfer;

4. in a decentralised and privatised context, attention needs to be given to building M&E

capacity within the implementing partner groups, rather than just focusing on M&E in a
project management unit, thus making M&E a vehicle for addressing questions of gover-
nance. However, sub-contracting M&E functions carries risks for corrective actions if it
dilutes a project’s access to critical information and capacity for reflection;

5. the importance of downward accountability and stakeholder participation – particularly of

primary stakeholders – in developing, implementing and improving the M&E process
becomes essential.

IFAD-supported projects encompass a broad spectrum of approaches to development, from the

more conventional to the more innovative. The Guide has been written from the perspective
of an approach to M&E that emphasises stakeholder participation, critical reflection for
learning and flexible implementation. These ideas have been presented in a way that makes
them applicable to a wide range of IFAD-supported projects, whether new or existing, conven-
tional or innovative.

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Further Reading

IFAD. International Fund for Agricultural Development. See Website at: http://www.ifad.org. For information on IFAD’s M&E strategy,
including information on its Office of Evaluation and Studies, see: http://www.ifad.org/evaluation. To access IFAD's evaluation
reports online in various languages, see: http://www.IFAD.org/list_eval.asp.

PREVAL. Programa para el Fortalecimiento de la Capacidad de Seguimiento y Evaluación de los Proyectos FIDA en América Latina y el
Caribe. Comprehensive Spanish Website on M&E for IFAD-supported projects in Latin America: http://www.preval.org

List of Booklets in the Guide

Section 1. Introducing the M&E Guide Annex A. Glossary of M&E Concepts and Terms

Section 2. Using M&E to Manage for Impact Annex B. Annotated Example of a Project Logframe Matrix and
Logframe Explanation (relates to Section 3)
Section 3. Linking Project Design, Annual Planning and M&E
Annex C. Annotated Example of an M&E Matrix (relates to
Section 4. Setting up the M&E System
Section 5)
Section 5. Deciding What to Monitor and Evaluate
Annex D. Methods for Monitoring and Evaluation (relates to
Section 6. Gathering, Managing and Communicating Information Sections 3, 6 and 8)

Section 7. Putting in Place the Necessary Capacities and Annex E. Sample Job Descriptions and Terms of Reference for
Conditions Key M&E Tasks (relates to Section 7)

Section 8. Reflecting Critically to Improve Action

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