Findings Infobriefs reports on Good Practice in ongoing operational, economic and sector work carried out by the World Bank and its member governments in the Africa Region. It is published monthly by the Knowledge and Learning Center on behalf of the Region. The views expressed in Findings are those of the author/s and should not be attributed to the World Bank Group.

Global HIV/AIDS Monitoring and Evaluation Team
in the MAP Projects (GAMET)

The Global HIV/AIDS Monitoring and Evaluation Support Team (GAMET) was formed in July 2002 as a unit of the Bank's Global HIV/AIDS Program in the HDN Vice Presidency. Its aim is to work with countries globally to strengthen and develop their capacity to monitor and evaluate the results of national programs and policy on HIV/AIDS. GAMET was created as a partnership between UNAIDS, other UN agencies, the Bank, the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM), and several technical agencies including the Global Program on HIV/AIDS, and the MEASURE/Evaluation project. It is funded by the UNAIDS trust fund for GAMET operations and by the Bank. The GAMET Country Support Team (CST) consists of 17 international Monitoring and Evaluation specialists who work in collaboration with the national M&E teams. The broad development objectives of GAMET are to utilize the principles and practice of M&E to build country capacity and mitigate the problems associated with HIV/AIDS. This includes three central objectives; i) innovation and development of strategies that incorporate M&E into the framework of the MAP projects ii) country assistance in their initiation of a national framework for M&E and the development of success indicators, and iii) the creation of community-level activities that are able to help local managers accurately assess program interventions.                                 

Impact on the ground

The GAMET team conducted more than 96 field support visits to 31 countries and projects in Africa alone, providing assistance to 25 countries in total towards their development of success indicators. GAMET has worked with 24 countries included in the Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Programme (MAP) for Africa projects lending portfolio. Country Support Teams, made up of 17 international Monitoring and Evaluation specialists are involved in the facilitation of country assessments on priority areas for evaluation. Each specialist has a portfolio of countries and provides support to the national M&E specialists. They are involved in designing, reporting, and tracking strategies and in supporting the creation of strategic documents and roadmaps for action that guide the work of the national M&E teams.                                                                                                                  

• Harmonization of approaches to M&E. Through the GAMET Advisory Board, the team worked with its partners to agree on the core elements of an ideal framework and strategic direction for M&E. They were able to balance contrasting views on the drive for results among stakeholders, bilateral agencies and partners.
• Assist the country to build operational plans. The GAMET team worked with the National AIDS Commission and Secretariat to help them decide on appropriate M&E plans. This included assistance that the team provided for the building of national operational action plans, in identifying gaps and indicators, and securing resources.
• Empower managers to steer and guide their own programs. M&E was used as a practical management tool, not just a reporting mechanism. The team worked to empower managers to use the data and information obtained through their Monitoring and Evaluation System, to improve effectiveness and enhance the impact of their own programs.
• Facilitating a structured process for learning by doing. Participation in the design of an M&E system is key to both leveraging knowledge, and behavior change. The role of GAMET is to assist countries to achieve a focus on results through learning by doing, and to ensure that this process is one that is supported internally.
• Empower country counterparts to define their own best practices. GAMET advised the country team on how to replicate successful M&E practices, and aided their country colleagues to define their own best practices, and to produce reports that describe the lessons learned by the team.
• Promote community learning. Through its launch of Community Learning activities in 2003, GAMET helped to equip local managers with the tools they need in order to use information to improve results at decentralized levels, and to identify their main priority areas. To this end, a Community Learning toolkit was developed.

Lessons learned

• Use M&E as a tool to motivate and empower. The greatest impact of M&E is its ability to increase motivation and empower its user to think critically. It is motivating for managers to be able to see what is being achieved.
• Focus on district over national-level decision-making. Decisions made by the local populations are based on local evidence and preference. Communities should be mobilized to participate and decide at this grassroots level.
• Empower the implementing organizations. The team worked to empower the organizations responsible for implementing M&E programs. Once they have the tools to collect information themselves, they have the qualitative experience to construct their own plans for action.
• Facilitate multi-sectoral partnerships. Districts have come together with the input of community organizations to use their partnership. These partnerships include the Community HIV/AIDS initiatives, in which communities work to develop their own proposals, while being funded by the national AIDS Commissions.
• Build capacity for national monitoring and evaluation. Harmonization on indicators is not enough, the real challenge was to help the staff in other agencies overcome their tendency to be in reporting rather than building capacity mode. M&E should be used to facilitate decision-making, it is not just about listing indicators.
• Manage results through rapid results initiatives. The rapid results approach monitors program management and policy decision-making in a way that is quick, effective and practical. The country team set its own goals, and was assisted in deciding whether the goals were attainable and if so, how to go after them.
• Replicate lessons learned. The team has leveraged country knowledge on M&E systems by promoting cross country-learning. The most credible source of advice on how to design a national M&E system has come from other countries involved in designing their own M&E systems.

This article was written by Sharon Watkins, Consultant with the AFTKL division, and has been sourced from the Debriefing titled `Global HIV/AIDS Monitoring and Evaluation Team in the MAP Projects (GAMET). The Debriefing site can be accessed by Bank staff at http://afr/debriefing. Readers who would like CDs of the debriefing should email swatkins@worldbank.org.

Persons accessing the Bank's external website can get more information on HIV/AIDS by clicking on Topics in Development. Bank staff can access this information from the Bank's Intranet by clicking on HIV/AIDS.

The "Good Practice Infobrief" series is edited by P.C. Mohan, mail stop J-8-811, Knowledge and Learning Center, World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington D.C., 20433. Tel. (202) 473-4114; e-mail: pmohan@worldbank.org