By Prince J Musa in Kenema
The National Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate (NaMED) has urged local councils to align their project implementation with the highest operating procedure. Officials of the directorate said this will help in proper monitoring and evaluation.
NaMED officials were in Kenema last week where they engaged local council authorities in the eastern region on a document designed to help them execute their role accordingly.
The Director General of NaMED, Dr. James Edwin, told Politico that they were in Kenema to cascade the development of standard guiding principles to evaluate and monitor projects across the country.
Dr Edwin said: "It’s a new institution that will have to ensure programs and projects are to be implemented by MDA's and Local councils in service delivery across the country.”
He added: "This document will serve as a standard operating policy for monitoring and evaluation of all public projects and development for state development. Local councils and MDAs will be guided [so that] monitoring and evaluation will be done accurately in service execution."
Edwin said all this is geared towards increasing the efficiency, transparency and accountability in all government projects that are undertaken.
The meeting brought together council representatives and other stakeholders across the region to discuss and validate the document. Chairman of Kailahun District Council, Sahr A.K Lamin, said the engagement will benefit them in terms of prioritizing, managing and aligning their work with partners.
“This NaMED consultation will help councils extremely. It is very good for service delivery. It will enable us as a council to measure the type of development to do and what we plan to do and check our inadequacies," Lamin said.
He added: "M&E directorate will enable both council and donor agencies to understand each other, that councils have right to monitor project taken to the communities that are meant for the people".
Once the policy is formulated, monitoring and evaluation will be at the center of government’s project implementation process. Development experts have for long time raised concerns about project duplication, non-completion and several other deficiencies with implementation.
The directorate, which was under the Ministry of Planning and Development, was moved this year to the Office of the President.
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