Abstract
The monitoring and evaluation function provides for accountability and to some extent transparency and, therefore, governance. However, this function can only be effective if it is conceptually linked within development interventions and public policy. There is an explicit discussion of the middle-third tier (how to monitor and evaluate) as well as the bottom-third tier (data collection and storage, data processing and analysis, reporting results and findings, integrating results and findings into planning and implementation as well as overall decision making). Unfortunately, the top-third tier that links monitoring and evaluation within development interventions (the what) and public policy (the how) is implicit, if present. The discussions often point out that monitoring and evaluation is a management and decision-making tool but they omit or fail to link it to development interventions and public policy, leadership and governance. In this paper, we interrogate literature from a systems thinking perspective to derive a model that conceptually links the monitoring and evaluation function within development interventions and public policy. In doing so, we point out and link the five components (cultural, political, economic, social and environmental) and two processes (imminent and immanent) of development. Similarly, we point out and link the five components (leadership, governance, political-economy, institutional arrangements and organisation arrangements) and three processes (research, decision-making and the public policy cycle) of public policy. It is in the latter that we point out, situate and link the monitoring and evaluation function. We envisage that the proposed model may be useful in reconfiguring institutional and organisational arrangements to foster effective monitoring and evaluation of development interventions.
Highlights
At some point, the reason underlying absent or ineffective monitoring and evaluation of development interventions in some African countries was lack of political will in its broad sense so that we include influential bureaucrats and technocrats
Another important debate is the role of what Hill (2003) calls ‘street-level bureaucrats’. She argues that it is state professionals who implement policy but the beneficiaries and other stakeholders who are not on the public payroll. Most of these non-state implementers hardly know, at least technically, what they need to know about implementing development interventions and yet they are important in the implementation process
Understanding the multi-loop nonlinear feedback system of the monitoring and evaluation function and mapping its dynamic behaviour proved to be useful when linking it to the several relevant fields of study in public administration
Summary
The reason underlying absent or ineffective monitoring and evaluation of development interventions in some African countries was lack of political will in its broad sense so that we include influential bureaucrats and technocrats. This was partly because monitoring and evaluation sometimes provide information that is not as desirable politically (Baradei, Abdelhamid & Wally 2014). Politicians in Benin, South Africa and Uganda have thrown their weight in support of monitoring and evaluation (Porter & Goldman 2013) To this list, we can add Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda. It provides institutional and organisational arrangements that foster integrity, accountability and transparency (Adejemboi 1998; Labelle 2010)
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