When a change in strategy and project implementation is necessary, the city departments will have to make adjustments and adapt project implementation.
Over the longer term, it may be necessary to revisit the role of the MC and any participatory approach to monitoring, and to refine stakeholder and institutional roles in monitoring.
Monitoring and evaluation, gender and poverty:
| One way to ensure gender sensitivity and a pro-poor approach in monitoring and evaluation is to set up a system of community based monitoring and evaluation.
Communities are often involved in making plans, but not in re-visiting and re-adjusting plans. They should be involved in critically assessing the nature of implementation; this is another way of bringing the community together for equitable, collective decision-making. Wherever possible, stakeholders, the poor and both women and men, should be involved in identifying results and indicators, and in collecting and analysing information. For instance, women and men often have different perceptions of gender relations—including gender-based roles and responsibilities, patterns of decision-making, views on how gender relations are changing, and the causes of these changes. Another aspect of M & E is monitoring the effectiveness of poverty reduction as part of the CDS. Have poverty reduction strategies been effective in reducing poverty? The government will have to develop a system to monitor and evaluate this. Key aspects of this system are a poverty monitoring system will need to track key indicators over time and space. This will help to determine the strategy is bringing about change. In addition, the city will have to perform rigorous evaluations to assess the impact of initiatives on poverty. The government may want to hire in outside expertise, but also to build domestic capacity to do this as well.
Source: Prennushi, G., Rubio, G. and Subbarao, K. 2002. Chapter 3: Monitoring and evaluation, In: Klugman, J. (ed.) A sourcebook for poverty reduction strategies : volume 1 : core techniques and cross-cutting issues, Washington, World Bank. |
A CDS should be monitored and revised regularly. One example of this is Jinja, Uganda, where the existing CDS is being revisited and revised, as described in the Box below.
The case of Jinja, Uganda—revisiting strategies:
| The Lake Victoria Cities Development Strategies Program (2002-2010), initiated by UN Habitat with funding from SIDA, is one of the first experiences of cities in Uganda with the CDS process. Entebbe, Jinja and Kampala (Uganda) participated in this program, including other cities surrounding Lake Victoria namely Kisumu & Homabay (Kenya) and Bukoba, Musoma & Mwanza (Tanzania). This regional program aimed to introduce a holistic, participatory planning approach (method) in urban settlements on the shores of Lake Victoria. A detailed evaluation of the program was conducted in 2011.
In 2010, The Transforming the Settlements of the Urban Poor (TSUPU) project was initiated between Cities Alliance and the Government of Uganda. The program supports five secondary cities namely: Arua, Jinja, Kabale, Mbale and Mbarara. The program aims to align urban development efforts at the national government, local government and community levels and include the urban poor into the planning and decision-making processes. Some of the activities in this program focused on CDS and slum upgrading strategies. One result was the establishment of the Uganda National Urban Forum and Municipality Development Forums (MDF). In 2014/2015 the Municipality Development Strategies (MDS) program was launched and builds on the previous related programs. The program is expected to run through 2016/2017. Through this initiative, Cities Alliance, Uganda Country office is currently supporting 14 municipalities, including Jinja, to adopt CDS as a planning tool. Secondary cities like Jinja that already have a CDS in place, will have opportunities to review and revise their CDS accordingly, including renewing interest, involvement and commitment of their rich spectrum of municipality urban actors. Source: field interviews, Jinja, Uganda, 2016 |
Recommended tool:
OECD-DAC evaluation questions