Adviser to the Commonwealth Secretariat, Dr. Joan Nwasike with Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Telecommunications, Energy, Invest Barbados and Energy, Darcy Boyce and Executive Director of CARICAD, Jennifer Astapham. (A. Miller/BGIS)

Monitoring and evaluation programmes are important, especially during times of economic recessions.

This was underscored by Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Telecommunications, Energy, Investment and Immigration, Senator Darcy Boyce. He was speaking at the opening of a Commonwealth Caribbean Development Evaluation Network Inaugural Meeting, today at the Accra Beach Resort.

Senator Boyce stated that governmental agencies should dedicate resources to seek out the needs of a society, then through careful evaluation, set a priority for fulfilling those needs. He added that careful evaluation must be undertaken especially when it relates to creating projects to benefit the country.

"The monitoring and evaluation programme needs to make sure that it uses objective, verifiable and meaningful measures to record what the project is delivering.?? Additionally, those measures should not be susceptible to manipulation by the person who is being monitored.

"Monitoring should also be designed so that the project operators can themselves see the indicators of their project performance early … so that the project’s operators are able to make changes … to improve the performance of the project, and to ensure the project delivers more of the impact it is designed to achieve," he said.

Senator Boyce also stressed the importance of keeping the public informed about ongoing projects. "Monitoring and evaluation personnel must also remember that the stakeholders of projects extend far beyond the project operators; the people in the street are generally quite interested in how projects are doing.?? And, this is as it should be since the projects are being funded, immediately or on a deferred basis, by the public… with their tax dollars," he stated.

During the two day meeting, public officials of the Commonwealth Caribbean will: update knowledge in the field of development monitoring and evaluation; discuss and agree on measures to strengthen the link between monitoring and evaluation and decision making; discuss current challenges of Development Monitoring and Evaluation in the Region; share experiences in utilising the findings of evaluation reports; and determine ways to improve assistance from the network.

aisha.reid@barbados.gov.bb

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