Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of Development Projects: A Conceptual Framework and The Asian Experience

Abstract

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) are important tools in project planning and management. The basis of M&E is distrust with human ability to control and co-ordinate events by one individual or a group of individuals or by a single institution to assure quality and timely implementation of projects and programmes, indicating the need for monitoring; (ii) secondly, it is the distrust with human capacity to foresee entirely the project logic and/or to ensure desirable impacts that indicate the need for evaluation. While the former is mor process orientated, the latter relates to ex-post situations. However, to understand the full implications of monitoring and evaluation, one must also understand the different stages and processes involved in the project cycle. While referring to monitoring and evaluation, this paper mainly talks about ex-post or post-planning monitoring and evaluation and outlines a framework which sees M&E as a stage activity relating to: (i) Input/Output Monitoring (10M) during implementation, (ii) Project Completion Report (PCR) at the time of termination of a project or an activity, (iii) Sustainability Monitoring (SM) during operation and maintenance stage, and (iv) Impact Evaluation (IE) after 4-5 years of completion, operation and maintenance of a project. This four stage M&E activity requires different methodologies and is indispensable for the successful implementation, operation, maintenance and impact of projects and programmes.