Government, civil society challenged to ensure project monitoring, evaluation

Mrs Dede Bedu-Addo, gender and social development consultant, has challenge government and civil society to make monitoring and evaluation a priority in the implementation of projects.

She explained that it was an effective way of ensuring accountability and positive impact of programs on the lives of the people.

Mrs Bedu-Addo made the call at a ‘’Ghana Monitoring and Evaluation’’ forum held in Tamale.

The forum dubbed: “Impact Evaluation” was funded by Star-Ghana, UNICEF and USAID, brought together professional bodies, individuals, development partners and local as well as international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), to learn and share ideas on how to effectively undertake monitoring and evaluation.

Mrs Bedu-Addo said monitoring and evaluation help implementers of programmes to know if a project should be expanded, modified, or stopped.

She said that Africa had a high average annual economic growth but had a lower real per capita income in the 21 century than in 1970.

Mrs Bedu-Addo   said more than 500 million people still live in poverty while dependency on external and food aid co-exists with growth in domestic revenues and food surpluses in many countries.

Seidu Alhassan, a Senior Lecture at the University of Development Studies, said the Upper West, Northern and Upper East Regions had benefited from many projects but the majority of the people in these areas were lingering in poverty and other challenges.

He said “the three regions have attracted funding from development partners and due to lack of strong monitoring and evolution systems, there is often double funds allocated for the same project being implemented by different NGOs”.

Source: GNA