Ugo Willy, Gombe
Gombe State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Salihu Baba Alkali, has assured that the adoption of the State’s Monitoring and Evaluation Policy Document will enhance good governance for the people of the State.
The policy document, first of it’s kind in the country, is now ready for presentation to the State Executive Council for adoption after going through a careful thorough drafting process.
When adopted, it becomes a working document for periodic monitoring and evaluation of programmes and projects of the State Government for the benefit of the people.
According to Baba Alkali during an interview with our correspondent on the sidelines of a meeting with stakeholders for the validation of the State’s Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Policy Document, the policy is specifically expected to among others, “institutionalise the M&E system to encourage participatory M&E practice in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s)”.
Under a Directorate, it will also aid to “prioritize lesson-learning-focused M&E strategy that will feed into the decision making process”, he added.
He also gave other specific functions of the M&E to include, “coordinate quarterly meetings with MDA officials to track progress in implementing the MEP.
“Attract more non-state actors into relevant networks and project communities to improve the quality of M&E activities and their effects on project interventions.
“Provide a platform for mobilising and coordinating the utilisation of resources from all stakeholders to improve the M&E learning in the Gombe State public sector.
“Become a central hub for storing all M&E outputs, including reports from MDA’s across the State. This is with a view to making them easily accessible, as a way of encouraging every stakeholder to utilise them.
“Submitting the annual State performance monitoring report to the State Executive Council and the State Assembly.
“Publish and disseminate the annual State performance monitoring report through appropriate channels to the public for easy access.
“Submit the State performance monitoring report to the State Executive Governor through the Commissioner of Budget and Economic Planning and the House of Assembly to aid their oversight function”, he outlined.
He said once this policy is approved and launched, it becomes a policy for the State Government and all MDA’s to follow and if that is done, monitoring of projects and evaluation of other things will be much easier for the State Government and also for the citizens of the State.
One of the critical stakeholder in the State and Commissioner of Health, Dr. Habu Dahiru stressed the importance of the policy document saying, “In my ministry of Health, M&E is very critical because of the huge volume of data that is generated for service delivery, projects, programmes and partnerships. It is a critical component for effective implementation and sustainability”.
Professor Eze Nwokocha from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, who supported Gombe State through the Policy Document development, expressed happiness over the seamless and easy validation process.
According to him, “Gombe State will reap the dividends of democracy and service delivery will be improved drastically. It will also open up accountability and transparency.
“Gombe State will be the first State to domesticate this national policy on M&E according to it’s peculiarities. It’s an important document that will guide development practice and everybody will be carried along”, Professor Eze emphasized.
Also speaking, some partners who actively participated during development and validation exercise of the document, UNICEF and State-to-State, expressed delight over the development in Gombe State.
For UNICEF, it’s Bauchi Field Office Planning and Monitoring Specialist, Stanley Garba, said the policy will harmonize it’s M&E process and also improve it’s culture and practice across the MDA’s.
“Before now, there were processes Government officials like to monitor their projects. There were no common projects standards, no standard guidelines. But this is providing that now, so that we can have a common and minimum requirement for ensuring that the programmes of Government are well monitored, evaluated and reported upon”, Mr Stanley pointed out.
Mohammed Abubakar of the State-to-State Transparency, Accountability Effectiveness Activity in Gombe, expressed hope that the M&E will help in the implementation of the State’s ten year development plan known as DEVAGOM.
“It is also our expectations that very soon, once the document is cleared up, sign it as a policy document, the State MDA’s will begin to implement it”, Mohammed Abubakar stated.
