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Package Learning Materials on Environment (PLANET)

PLANET Workshop - Monitoring and Evaluation

Photo:Monitoring and Evaluation-1 Being a critical factor of a project cycle, issues concerning monitoring and evaluation have been discussed from many angles, as follows.

Mr. Amba Jamir, a resource person of the workshop, summarised important issues in Monitoring and Evaluation and shared with the participants.

Issues in Monitoring and Evaluation by Mr. Amba Jamir (36KB)

GENERAL CONCERNS

Tight project duration makes it impossible to evaluate the impact
Common understanding of “monitoring and evaluation” needed
Standard indicators required
Different implications to M&E between school-based projects and community-based projects

PURPOSE

To enhance effectiveness and relevancy for adaptation, dissemination, utilisation, capacity building and project itself
To improve skills, attitude, quality of life, behaviour etc. of learners
To check the path of progress
To check the achievement of objectives
To match the project activities to the recipients’ needs
To review effectiveness of materials produced
To help make management decisions (to advance, modify and/or add)
To adjust the plan if necessary
To draw insights
To prepare reports
To build database
To measure performance based on objectives and goals
To draw conclusions based on data

PROCESS

Continuous
Baseline data collection ↁEProcess/progress monitoring ↁEEvaluation ↁEImpact
5 different stages:
- Adaptation
- Dissemination and utilisation
- Capacity building
- Project operation
- Impact

TYPES

Self
Internal
External
Joint (internal and external)

METHODS (structured/unstructured/informal)

Parcitipatory at all stages, mobilise local facilitators...

Observation
(Visual) Documentation at different stages
Reporting
In-depth interview
Dialogue
Questionnaire
Discussion (Ex. focused group discussion)
Inter-visitation
Survey
Follow-up visits
Data Base
Any other unobtrusive methods

LEVELS

Community level (people)
Field workers level
Project management level
National level
Regional/cross-country level
ACCU level

INVOLVEMENT (to whom, by whom)

Networks and partnership are important...

Learners
Community people
Facilitators/teachers
Project team/management (all levels)
Institutions
Government (local/central)
Other agencies involved(private, etc)
ACCU

EXAMPLES FROM THE PROJECT SITES

A wide variety of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) types have been identified in different PLANET executive organisations during the implementation of PLANET 3 activities. The following three cases show an interesting contrast of M&E methods.

MONGOLIA - generic M&E in a country of vast terrain with scattered population

National Centre for Non Formal and Distance Education (NFDE) distributed the PLANET package to all the NFE centres in the country, which made it almost impossible to conduct M&E in each place. Thus, NFDE adopted:

Self-monitoring by NFE facilitators at the community level; and
External monitoring of NFDE project management team.

Self-monitoring methods employed were:

Focus group discussion;
Individual interview; and
Meeting with community people,

conducted by facilitators, school principals, and community leaders.

External monitoring and evaluation overcame the challenges lying in its geographical features by combining M&E activities with other programmes such as summer literacy training or equivalency programme training. In doing so, the coverage of M&E became wider and the cost decreased compared to separate M&E only for the PLANET activities.

NFDE also had National TV stations broadcast PLANET animated cartoon films as well as initiate PLANET radio lessons, after which a questionnaire was distributed to obtain feedback from mass audience and learners.

INDIA - facilitative M&E as a learning process

Centre for Environment Education (CEE) took a facilitative and formative M&E approach, to play a more supportive role for teachers and school management to improve the programme, rather than a conventional M&E approach to check whether the programme is on the right track as initially planned. Below are some innovative features of M&E that CEE conducted.

The first visit: one-to-one meetings
During the first visit, CEE staff met with school management, teachers and students. This revealed that only a few schools out of 17 were serious about doing the project while others only conducted ceremonial inauguration of the project. However, the monitoring visit actually reminded the school management and teachers that CEE was serious about the project, which in turn highly motivated them.
The second visit: mid-term review with teachers in charge
The second visit was conducted as the mid-term review with teachers. This meeting played a catalytic role, where teachers could share challenges and concerns they encountered during the project implementation as well as sharing good practices among teachers in charge of the project.
Retired “Best Teacher” as a mediator close to the site
Being located in Bangalore which is approx. 530 km away from the project sites in Kochi, CEE South appointed a retired teacher who once won the award of “Best Teacher” in the project site as a mediator. He visited the target schools very frequently and reported the findings back to CEE in Bangalore, which greatly contributed to the improvement of on-going activities.
Word Association Survey
To see the cognitive changes among students, CEE conducted word association survey by distributing simple questionnaires before and after the project on waste management.

Word Association Survey EIndia (156KB)

BANGLADESH - participatory M&E at the community, institutional and regional levels

Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) took three different approaches for M&E of Planet3: a) formation of community-level monitoring teams; b) coordination with MIS Unit within the organisation; and c) cross-country monitoring of the pilot project with a team comprised of DAM, CEE and ACCU. Combination of those different perspectives enabled DAM to triangulate the collected data for more accurate analysis.

Participatory Monitoring System
DAM formed a community-level monitoring team in each project site. The team identified indicators and used it to monitor the activities. The team monitored their own activities in the pilot project areas on a weekly or monthly basis through visitation of the target learners’ households, discussions with the target groups and trainers in the Community Resource Centres and so on. The trainers engaged in the project could get feedback from the monitoring team for the betterment of their activities. This participatory monitoring system was found most applicable in such a community-based project, because the teams could collect firsthand information on the spot thanks to its proximity to the project sites. This proved very effective, as the project managers could go and solve problems which had occurred in response to reports sent to the head office.
Coordination between the Project Implementation Team and M&E Division
DAM has an independent unit dedicated to M&E of the organisation’s programmes and projects, which conducts M&E in their own way and provides feedback to project teams and the management. The PLANET project team was also able to get feedback from them.
Cross-country Monitoring
Representatives from CEE and ACCU visited DAM for the purpose of joint monitoring, and the cross-country monitoring team went to project sites together with DAM representatives. This unique approach enabled them to see the project both lateral and vertical points of view, and stimulated discussion among different stakeholders, which served as a good platform to exchange ideas and reflect on their own activities.

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