Making a Results-based Monitoring and Evaluation System Work for SDGs

14 & 15 December 2021

Background

With the onset of the globalization, there have been increasing pressures on governments and a multitude of organizations around the globe that they should actively respond to the demands of multi-stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results.[1] Governments, international organizations, the private sector, citizens, and  nongovernmental organizations(NGOs), along with civil society are the main stakeholders greatly interested in better performance towards sustainable development. As better performance and real results are emphasized in the international community,  there is a growing interest in enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluations of policies, programs and projects.

Monitoring and evaluation system can be a very powerful management tool in ameliorating the way a multitude of organizations including governments achieve the sustainable development goals. In fact, the field of M&E system has gone through a significant transition, a movement away from traditional implementation-focused approaches to results-based approaches.[2] The results-oriented approach refers to a management system where project planning and results can be closely linked by strengthening monitoring and evaluation for better effectiveness of development cooperation activities. Simply put, it is not enough to just implement projects like building a school or agriculture infrastructure and assume that this will lead to the livelihood improvement in the vulnerable region. The outcomes and impacts of the project implementation should be observed and analyzed during the whole project to obtain the desired results.

For those who are about to start development project and/or already involved in one, a results-based M&E system will be very conducive to identifying potential risks which get in the way to achieving the desired goals for sustainable development and responding to various stakeholders’ demands for results. With the potential benefits M&E system can bring to us in mind, CIFAL Jeju organizes a virtual capacity building workshop to provide space for knowledge sharing and peer learning experiences along with expert insights on results-based M&E approaches. The program will explore the results-based M&E in different contexts, how to select key performance indicator to better monitor outcomes, and  multiple obstacles to overcome in establishing M&E system. Also, the CIFAL Jeju program alumni whose action plan has been selected as the best one will be invited and given an opportunity to share their own action plan and how its progress has been made. The peer participants and the invited experts will discuss the presented action plans based on the knowledge gained during the lectures on the results-based M&E system.

Event objectives

- To provide a platform for sharing good practices and lessons learned on results-based M&E approaches

- To explore how to design and implement a results-based M&E system to tackle the challenges facing the development practitioners in achieving the SDGs

- To analyze different action plans in practice to gain professional insights for better implementing a results-based M&E system towards sustainable, resilient and inclusive societies

Expected outcomes

- Better understanding of a results-based M&E system that can bring about higher effectiveness for sustainable development

- Sharing different results-based M&E experiences among all sectors at the global, regional, national, and local level

- Getting familiarized with various tools to build the M&E system for better effectiveness of development cooperation activities

Target audience

This training is mainly open to any CIFAL Jeju program alumni from different sectors – government, NGOs, civil societies, academia, business and others, who are involved in development project activities in a wide range of contexts for sustainable development.

Program Structure