MONITORING

Monitoring is a crucial part of the project management cycle; it is a process that will be carried out during the implementation stage to observe the progress of the project implementation and to ensure that inputs, activities, outputs and external factors are proceeding according to plan. It can be defined as any kind of acquisition or collection of data on a certain activity using technical devices, observation or surveying methods to assess if targeted outputs are proceeding as planned so that timely corrective measures can be taken before the project is affected (UN water, 2006). 

  “One of the main characteristics of monitoring is that it is a  frequent or continuous process (FAO, 2006:11).”

The monitoring tool provides the project management with regular and continuous feedback that can be used to identify problems, make decisions, manage projects more successfully and plan better project activities in the future.

With the increasing number of donor-funded water projects, the number of monitoring systems and methodologies has also increased. In order to be able to assess the quality and comparability of monitoring reports, projects and programmes should be given simple scores against internationally agreed criteria of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability (EC, 2012).

Furthermore, for effective and sustainable monitoring and analysis, your project must have a clear analytical framework of goals, activities and stakeholders in order to clearly set the overall objectives, the purpose of the project, the expected results (outputs), the activities through which you are going to achieve those results and the expected outcomes of your project. The framework will specify how you are going to achieve your results, indicators necessary to measure progress towards your pre-identified goals, and useful sources of information for each of your planned activities. The monitoring activities will be programmed and measured against this analytical framework.

Many types of monitoring tools exist; each should be used in accordance with your needs and what you are monitoring. A non-exhaustive list of monitoring tools is presented below:

• Survey - a set of predetermined questions about certain topics that are answered by a target audience (quantitative).
• Interview - a set of questions about a certain topics that are posed to a target audience and followed by additional questions and conversations (qualitative).
• Focus Group - group discussion about certain questions (qualitative).
• Site visits - combination of observations and interviews that occur in the project’s environment (qualitative).
• Documentation - Administrative record of project activities (e.g. reports, minutes of meetings, registration forms, national statistics etc.) (quantitative and qualitative).
• Anecdotes - Stories and narratives about an event, experience or an individual related to the project (qualitative).
• Fieldwork reports - Structured report forms that ensure that indicator-related questions are posed and answers recorded, and that observations are recorded on every visit (qualitative).
• Community meetings - This involves a gathering of a fairly large group of beneficiaries to whom questions, problems, situations are put for input to help in measuring indicators (qualitative).

References and further readings:

EC, 2011, Water Project Toolkit: Water resources management for sustainable development. Available online: http://www.aquaknow.net/en/water-project-toolkit

EC, 2012, ROM handbook: Result Oriented Monitoring. Available online: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/how/ensure-aid-effectiveness/documents/rom_handbook2011_en.pdf

FAO, 2006, Water monitoring, mapping existing global systems & initiatives. Prepared on the behalf of the UN-Water Task Force on Monitoring. Available online: http://www.fao.org/nr/water/docs/UNW_MONITORING_REPORT.pdf

UNDP, 2009, Handbook on planning, monitoring and evaluating for development results. Available online: http://web.undp.org/evaluation/handbook/documents/english/pme-handbook.pdf