Rijad Kovac
Responsible organizations and governments around the world seek to improve their work. In order to know how to improve work, we must be able to monitor performance through the achievement of activity results. Only tracking of activities or implementing activities is not enough as only activities that produce results are deemed successful activities. Monitoring the implementation of activities and achieving results is a powerful management tool in every organization as well as in government structures. One of the key reasons for better performance of private organizations in relation to public ones is that private organizations have much better developed monitoring mechanisms of implementation and monitoring of activity outcomes. For this reason, there is a need for the presentation and development of a result measurement system. This is particularly important for measuring the success of projects and policies for the development of organizations and government activities. Bearing in mind the EU pathway of Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries in the region where sectoral policy and monitoring of sectoral development, or activities and results achieved within the sector, are very important, we decided to dedicate one part of the publication to this matter. In this and following articles, we will present the steps for the development of such a system through the review of the establishment of the system as presented by top experts in this area, such as Jody Zall Kusek and Ray C. Rist in their famous book “Ten Steps to a Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation System: A Handbook for Development practitioners “.
The first step in the development of the system is to check the readiness of the system to establish an organized and systematic monitoring of result achievement.
Some systems or parts of the system do not want to have a systematically organized result monitoring because monitoring results presents the first step in assessing or evaluating certain activities, and perhaps the work of the system itself or organization itself. Owners of private organizations are very interested in establishing such a system and they have a strong motivation and a way to provide the readiness of the system for an efficient and effective monitoring system. For public organizations or organizations involved in development assistance, such a system is more difficult to establish because sometimes there is no readiness of the system to systematically monitor the results of its activities.
In such a way, we often have monitoring of activities in public institutions, monitoring of working hours, but very rarely we have monitoring of the work results. For example, it is not sufficient to pass and adopt a law with certain legal solutions in the specific field, which is often considered a measure of work success of a ministry. It is necessary to monitor results, i.e. the effects that this law has caused, it is necessary to see changes in behaviour of those to which this law applies, as well as the changes in those variables that we wanted to change with the adoption of such a legal solution. This can only be done by systematic monitoring of results. However, the establishment and maintenance of a result monitoring system requires the complexity of voter body to ask for results, political readiness to monitor results, as well as continuous engagement and resources. The establishment of the system requires the establishment followed by maintenance, which is often a bigger challenge than the establishment itself.
Step 1 Readiness assessment
Analysis with an aim to assess the capacity and will of an organization or government to build the M&E system based on results.
The Analysis focuses on the overview of establishment incentives, including the types of roles and responsibilities, organizational capacity, presence of key persons related to the system, and barriers to the establishment. In this context, it is very important to answer the following questions:
- Why is there a need to establish a system?
- Who will or will not benefit from the establishment of the system?
- The role of central government bodies and line ministries?
- Legal basis?
- Who is producing and who is using data and availability of data?
At the same time, an assessment of the capacity of the organization/ministry is performed according to:
- Technical skills
- Management skills
- Existing data systems and its quality
- Available hardware and software
- Available budget
- Institutional experience
Finally, it is necessary to consider the barriers to the establishment of the system:
- Lack of finance
- Lack of political will
- Lack of staff that will carry the system
- Lack of target orientated strategy or experience
- Lack of clear mandate
- Existence of successful practice
Conclusions of the implementation of the system readiness analysis provide us with an opportunity to summarize all the aforementioned, and to take advantage of chances for establishing the system. We can build the system out of one pilot institution and spread it towards others with experience. There must be a clear mandate and responsibility for the system expansion and clear leadership that is willing to use results in decision making.
