Monitoring and Evaluation of Projects

Monitoring and Evaluation are basically different, though complementary. Monitoring is a periodically recurring task already beginning in the planning stage of a project or programme. Monitoring allows results, processes and experiences to be, documented and used as a basis to steer decision-making and learning processes. It primarily oversees the physical implementation process to verify that inputs are made available on time and properly utilized. Monitoring concerns itself largely with the transformation of inputs to outputs. It is expected to alert stakeholders (primarily physical) implementation problems, while evaluation is more concerned with immediate and development objectives. It is based on value judgment. Evaluation, on the other hand, analyzes objective achievement in order to maximize the impact of continuing projects and to provide guidance for the planning of new ones. Evaluations helps to draw conclusions about five main aspects of the intervention namely: relevance, effectiveness, sustainability, efficiency and impact.