Supervisor: Thierry Benoit Intern: Da Silva Cabral Daniel Poverty Alleviation Fund, Identifying the key success factors of an efficient M&E system Supervisor: Thierry Benoit Intern: Da Silva Cabral Daniel

M&E rationales and importance Monitoring and evaluation (M&E): The combination of monitoring and evaluation which together provide the knowledge required for: a) effective project management b) reporting and accountability responsibilities. Monitoring has a crucial importance to achieve projects goals and communicate on its results.

M&E objectives Provides frequent and reliable data on project’s inputs, outputs and outcomes Provide regular information on Impacts Use of data collected and understanding of issues to improve project implementation Learning process, including feedbacks from the field Internal and external communication basis

Poverty Alleviation Fund, Nepal

Presentation of the project Goals: To reduce the level of poverty to 10 percent in 20 years in pursuant with the long-term goal of the Government To reduce poverty by half by the year 2015 as per Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Project phases: Phase 1 from 2004 to 2008, 25 districts Phase 2 from 2008 to 2013, 50 districts 5 components: Small scale village and community infrastructures Income generating sub-projects Innovation and special programmes Capacity building Administration of PAF

Organization scheme

M&E Staff At national level: At district level: One M&E officer One MIS officer + assistant One KM and Communication officer All other departments report bout their activities to these 3 officers At district level: M&E is under responsibility of Portfolio Managers (40) Data collection is mainly led by partner organizations, supervised by PMs.

MIS system components and related departments

Activity progress and results Data collection for these indicators is directly integrated in implementation process After a social assessment, POs assist group formation and submit a report about the new group Sub-project proposal Sub-project appraisal etc. No implementation step can be led until previous step registration in the MIS is completed

PAF Management Information System

Money disbursement Money disbursement is generally led in three times for INFRA sub-projects and in twice for IG sub-projects No money is disbursed until previous phase report is submitted and data registered in the MIS PM randomly visit sub-project to control reality of reported elements

Outcomes and impacts Outcomes indicators are yearly collected by POs mainly, then sent to PM and gathered my M&E division Impact are measured on an annual basis thanks to a social re-assessment, led on a sample of 3 years mature groups of beneficiaries Neither outcomes nor impacts are integrated in MIS data processing, even though this integration is currently on progress

KM and communication Information is managed through many different medias, both for internal purpose and communication purpose PAF website: PAF has its own website, with all M&E documents available. It also has a Facebook page, where major achievements of the programme are presented Radio: PAF is using radio to communicate about programme actions in the districts where it is implemented Television: PAF also broadcasts a weekly 15 minutes TV programme, at national level

Key success factors Key success factors identified in PAF are: Efficient and well trained staff M&E system directly integrated in implementation process Efficient use of well-adapted MIS Broad communication system Centralization and well defined roles

Remaining weaknesses Integration to MIS of certain indicators is not completed yet (especially for outcomes and impacts) Some indicators are not reported following the way or the unit initially defined in the Log frame Lack of qualitative data. The system is finally so strictly organized that very few informal feedbacks from the fields are available at central level

Thank you for your attention