Taking Management Digital: Lessons from the Development of an Innovative Management Information System for Small Businesses in Ethiopia

Salman Alibhai,Francesco Strobbe,Espen Villanger

doi:10.1596/1813-9450-8608

Abstract

In many aid projects, monitoring and evaluation is a static exercise driven by donor reporting requirements. After project closure, there are seldom sustainable benefits of the monitoring and evaluation system. This paper examines how monitoring and evaluation can be transformed into a dynamic tool for effective project management, with benefits carrying over beyond the typical project lifecycle. The paper assesses an innovative, digital management information system developed under the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project, a Government of Ethiopia initiative financed by a World Bank International Development Association loan and grant funding from Global Affairs Canada. The paper examines the context of the development of the management information system, its effectiveness, and its potential for sustainability. Ethiopia is among the poorest countries in the world, and government administration units involved in administering projects often face funding and resource shortfalls. The paper demonstrates how effective and sustainable monitoring and evaluation systems can be developed even in challenging contexts such as these, by focusing on simple technical solutions that can be maintained and refined locally, ensuring low development and maintenance costs compatible with government monitoring and evaluation budgets, and linking project-level monitoring and evaluation to broader government operations.

Highlights

How can project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) be transformed into a dynamic tool for effective project management? How can M&E tools be integrated into national government structures and carry over beyond the lifecycle of a project? These are the two key questions that this paper aims to address.In many aid projects, M&E is a static exercise driven by donor system reporting requirements
A second lesson from the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project (WEDP) experience is that the management information systems (MIS) must be integrated into local cost and implementation structures
The WEDP MIS achieved a high degree of sustainability by developing a simple technical solution that can be maintained and refined locally and is compatible with the skills of the involved parties

Summary

Introduction

How can project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) be transformed into a dynamic tool for effective project management? How can M&E tools be integrated into national government structures and carry over beyond the lifecycle of a project? These are the two key questions that this paper aims to address.In many aid projects, M&E is a static exercise driven by donor system reporting requirements. How can project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) be transformed into a dynamic tool for effective project management? The M&E system is shut down, and there are seldom any sustainable benefits of the M&E component. This seems to be a misuse of resources that would not be tolerated in other project components, where the requirement is usually that the benefits of a program continue after donor funding ceases (Chianca 2008). Sustainability of the resources used for M&E in development projects should be a concern, with sustainability of development assistance defined as the extent to which the benefits of the project continue after donor assistance has been completed (OECD 2010a). In a review of Norwegian evaluations, all sustainability assessments omitted the M&E components (Norad 2014)

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Methods

Conclusion