In terms of monitoring and evaluation systems, these two countries are among the leaders in the developing world. The national, whole-of-government M&E system of each has been the subject of an in-depth diagnosis or review, conducted by the World Bank, so a lot is known about their strengths and weaknesses. A conclusion is that each can be considered good practice, for two reasons. First, the quality of their monitoring information and evaluations is generally reliable. And second, the monitoring information and evaluation findings which they produce are used intensively. This high utilization reflects strong demand for M&E, and can be viewed as a predictor of the sustainability of these M&E systems.

Concepts of good practice or best practice countries can be dangerous, however, particularly if they lead other countries to attempt to copy them uncritically. This is because each country’s circumstances and public sector environment are unique. Even the richest, most developed countries exhibit a very wide range of approaches to assessing the performance of government and making use of this information. So, while there are many common trends influencing governments to create M&E systems, and while there are many common tools for M&E across these countries, there are also wide differences in the emphasis given to each tool, and to the types of use which are made of them.

That said, the cases of Chile and Colombia provide many lessons relevant to other governments working to build or strengthen their M&E systems. The high interest from other countries in the region led the World Bank’s Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) Region to organize a brown-bag seminar on Chile and Colombia. The presentation was made by Keith Mackay, who is the evaluation capacity development coordinator in the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group. The seminar was chaired by Jaime Saavedra, sector manager of the LAC Region’s poverty group. The discussant at the seminar was Ariel Zaltsman, a doctoral student at New York University. The seminar was initiated and organized by Elaine Patterson, the regional learning coordinator for the Bank’s LAC Region. The seminar took place in August 2006 in Washington, D.C., and was attended by some 40 Bank staff. Government officials from 8 countries and other Bank staff participated via video conference links with Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela.

The video of the seminar is presented in individual segments covering the following topics:

Seminar introduction (4:16 minutes)

Overview: what does ‘success’ look like? (3:03 minutes)

Chile’s M&E system: architecture; strengths; challenges (15:32 minutes)

Colombia ’s M&E system: architecture; strengths; challenges (8:11 minutes)

How to define a government M&E system as being ‘good practice’ (3:37 minutes)

Lessons from the two countries (5:15 minutes)

Useful Resources (0:36 minutes)

Discussant remarks (10:10 minutes)

Question and answer session (56:24 minutes)

A copy of the powerpoint slides used in the presentation is available for downloading. You may wish to print out a copy of these slides while you watch the video.

The Useful Resources highlighted at the brown-bag seminar are available:

Chile government website on its M&E system:

Colombia government website on its M&E system

Ernesto May et al. (eds.), Towards the Institutionalization of Monitoring and Evaluation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, World Bank/IADB, 2006. (Disponible en Español)

Keith Mackay, Institutionalization of Monitoring and Evaluation Systems to Improve Public Sector Management, Independent Evaluation Group, World Bank, 2006. (Disponible en Español)

Ariel Zaltsman, Experience with Institutionalizing M&E Systems in Five Latin American Countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay, Independent Evaluation Group, World Bank, 2006. (Disponible en Español)

World Bank, A Diagnosis of Colombia’s National M&E System, SINERGIA, Independent Evaluation Group, World Bank, 2007 (forthcoming).

World Bank website on Building Government M&E Systems