Monitoring and evaluation of decentralized development in Kenya

Abstract

The policy of District Focus £or Rural Development (1983) assigned monitoring and evaluation activities to both the District Development Committees and the Provincial Monitoring and Evaluation Committees, but it did not forward any operational definition o£ the terms. This has led to an ambiguous relationship between the provinces and the districts in terms o£ authority and responsibility. The objective o£ this paper is to examine the process o£ systematizing the monitoring and evaluation o£ rural development projects and programs in Kenya. The basic contention is that the execution o£ monitoring and evaluation by the DDCs and the PMECs can be made more effective if monitoring tasks are distinctly differentiated from evaluation tasks with the former being assigned to the districts and the latter to the provinces. As a result of the analysis provided in this paper, two points stand out clearly. First, monitoring is a continuous task throughout the life of a project or program. It involves accounting, auditing and reporting. It compares planned outputs, targets and purpose with the real levels achieved. It can best be performed by those responsible for every day execution o£ project activities. Second, evaluation is a periodic activity that uses data and information generated from the monitoring process to address specific implementation problems and/or to assess project effects and impact. It can best be performed by an agency somewhat removed from day to day operations of the project or program. This paper proposes an information system that requires the districts to submit quarterly progress reports to the provinces and the headquarters. It then requires the provinces to generate from these quarterly reports half- yearly project status evaluation reports for submission to both the project management in the districts and the policy management at the headquarters