- Monitoring involves continuous observations and checking on activities and their results
- The purpose is to ensure that activities are proceeding according to plan to provide a record of how inputs are used and to warn of deviations from initials and expected outcomes.
- Monitoring is the process of checking the progress of the project. It is giving of information and assessing information to ensure project progress. Activities with a view to ascertain whether they are in line with agreed work plan and number report any deviation.
- Monitoring is important for project managers to ensure that they make appropriate decisions.
- The use of the term monitoring varies with organization. Others use the term review
Purpose of monitoring
- To provide relevant timely information to indicate to those concerned whether or not the operations, performance and impact of an intervention is as expected.
- To ensure tasks are being carried out according to schedule.
- To see if outputs and outcomes are achieving designed level
- To check whether or not project impacts accords to project objectives
- To assess whether objectives need to change in light/in view of experience
Monitoring Addresses
- Measurement of physical process of a project i.e. the review of project activities
- Measurement of financial progress
- Addresses the concern of quality control and the fitness of the project output for their intended purposes
- Also helps inn giving other information that is important and specific for smooth running of the project.
Basic concepts in monitoring
Monitoring procedure
- This is a group of activities done by people (monitors) who follow a plan to check program implementation.
A monitor
- This is a person who uses a monitoring procedure. The person may or may not have other program responsibility.
Monitoring plan
- It is a description of how specific components from a monitoring system will be used, when they will be used (scheduled) and how the results will be reported.
Monitoring system
- It is a group of components related to some aspects of program implementation
- Each component includes a description of a standard group of indicators and a description of some adjustment to make when the situation deviates from the standard.
Standard
- It is a description of the characteristics for acceptance conditions
Indicator
- This is an explicit procedure that provides trust worthy information about the level of performance or conditions related to some standards.
Adjustment procedure
- It is a description of what to do, when an indicator shows the situation deviation from ascent end performance or conditions.
An Example of a Simple Short Monitoring Plan
TIME PERIOD: SEP TO OCT, 2000/2001
MONITORS: Project officers/coordinators/communities/village committees
STANDARDS: Community meetings where program decisions are made shall have
At least half men and half women present who live in the community
INDICATORS: Meeting attendances figures in the minutes for each meeting. The
Monitors count the number of women and men present at a
Meeting compared with the number of men and women living in
the community.
ADJUSTMENT If the percentage of men and women present is less than 40% then the project manager helps the project committee members creates a plan to increase attendance at the next meeting.
PROCEDURES:
REPORTING: Each man, the reported attendance figures or the monitor own counts
of the people attending the meeting will be included in the monthly
report for that project.
Characteristics of Appropriate Monitoring System
- It is continuous: throughout the life of an activity or organization/project
- It checks mainly efficiency, the process of the work inputs, activities output, conditions and assumptions.
- It generally involves only the insiders
- Documents i.e. Monthly and quarterly reports are used
- Managers and staff are the main users of the information gathered.
Areas of Project Monitoring
Resource utilization: – resource acquisition, utilization and consumption are a critical component for ensuring effective and efficient implementation of the project.
- To ensure that project activities are carried out, there must be constant and regular flow of the resource. The resources must be utilized for the intended purposes.
- They should also be sourced and supplied as per the spent specification in terms of cost, quantity and quality.
- Time schedule adherence a significant element in project monitoring.
Benefits flows analysis: project monitoring is done to determine flow of project benefit directly to the intended beneficiaries. These benefits must be shared and distributed equally and equitably.
- The beneficiary must participate in the sharing of the benefits and even the losses accrue from the project.
Community participation and engagement: any project must ensure active, genu9ine, voluntary and popular participation and involvement of not only the project beneficiaries but also the community indirectly.
- Genuine and popular participation will be monitored on the account of the following aspects:
- All the members of the community (men, women, youth etc) must be actively involved and engaged.
- All members of the community must participate at all level i.e. Project ideas implementation and management.
- Participation in terms of sharing profits and losses accrued from the project.
- Participation must not only be active but also voluntary, popularly, genuine and objective oriented.
Elements of Project Monitoring Framework
- These are issues that needs to be put in place in project monitoring
- We need to specify the people/offices/agencies that are going to use the information. Depending on who will use the information determines how you will present it.
- Specify who will participate in project writing
- What are key objective of the project?
- Specify indicators to measure to progress
- What methods are you to use to gather information?
- Specify when monitoring will take place
- Specify how the monitoring system is going to be managed
- Specify who will manage the information
Importance of Project Monitoring
- Monitoring can be used as some kind of accountability to donors/stakeholders. When you conduct monitoring you are expected to write a monitoring report.
- It provides information and feedback that can be used for lesson learning
- It helps to appreciate and understand changes in the evaluation e.g inflation
- It provides information that can be used for the measurement of project progress
- It is a tool for management, implementation, monitoring system provides information that managers use to modify or improve intervention and identify solutions to problems and constraints before they become a crisis.
- Helps to utilize resources efficiently and effectively
- Helps to keep inputs ready on time
- Helps to ensure work plans are followed as closely as possible
- Ensure that adjustments can be made and corrective actions taken when necessary
- Stakeholders are kept informed and on time and also constraints and bottlenecks can be foreseen and timely solutions found.
