‘Government committed to development tracking’
Deputy Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Janet Banda, has said Capital Hill is committed to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tasks, not just as a routine fiduciary activity to please financiers of development programmes but as an important and imperative development management tool.
Banda was speaking in Lilongwe on Wednesday during the launch of National Evaluation Week.
Among other things, Banda said the government would soon launch the National Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Policy, which seeks to create a sustained culture of demanding and supplying M&E data and information for evidence-based decision-making at all levels.
She said the policy would structure, systematise and institutionalise practices and application of M&E systems for all development actors in the country.
“As we finalise the National M&E Policy, we are undertaking steps to ensure that we create a conducive environment for the generation of quality data and use of the results in development planning not only in the public sector but across the development space,” she said.
Banda further said, following the MIP-1 Annual Progress Report, the government, through the National Planning Commission, has developed a dynamic data driven portal for tracking and reporting the implementation progress of MIP-1 and SDGs.
The week is expected to provide a platform for M&E stakeholders that include civil society organisations, the private sector, academic institutions, independent evaluators, researchers, development partners, and policymakers, to work together in improving M&E in Malawi.
The week is being celebrated under the theme ‘Enhancing Evaluation Capacity and Use of Evaluation Results’.
NPC Director General Thomas Munthali said M&E is critical to appreciating progress as Malawi continues on its journey to 2063.
Luanar Director of Research and Outreach Sam Katengeza said, in recent years, there have been policy changes as a result of M&E data unlike in the past when data were just being shelved.
