MONEVA - a Monitoring & Evaluation System to Assess the Performance of Participatory Irrigation Management/Irrigation Management Transfer Programs in the Mediterranean Region

Abstract

One of the major shortcomings of the Participatory Irrigation Management/Irrigation Management Transfer (PIM/IMT) programs undertaken in many countries of the world, is the predominant absence of Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) systems specifically addressed to accompany these processes, and become a major instrument to correct, improve and learn. To contribute to closing this gap, this paper presents the main features of “MONEVA”, an M&E system tailored to PIM/IMT programs, and adapted to different Mediterranean Countries. The system is based on the principles of the Logical Framework Analysis (LFA), which permitted the development of objectives, outcomes, outputs and appropriate indicators for the monitoring of results. MONEVA is integrated with seven menus and many submenus which detailed description is reported in the embedded User’s Manual. Only selected options are presented in this paper. The important and innovative features of MONEVA are its capacity to adapt to every country by using only the indicators relevant to the country, and a simple and objective system of evaluation. The results of its application in the pilot countries Jordan and Tunisia, i) demonstrated its flexibility to adapt to local contexts and the easiness of its application which supported its adoption, and ii) validated its characteristics as a Decision Support System (DSS), having a great potential for improving the implementation of the PIM/IMT programs, through the identification of their criticalities and thus, facilitating the definition of corrective actions at government and agency levels, but particularly, at the Water Users’ Association (WUA) level.