The growing literature on experience with strengthening government M&E systems suggests a broad agreement on a number of key lessons. These are discussed in How to Build M&E Systems to Support Better Government.

First and foremost is that substantive demand from the government is a prerequisite to successful institutionalization -- where reliable monitoring information and evaluation findings are produced by the M&E system, they are judged valuable by key stakeholders, they are used in the pursuit of good governance, and there is sufficient demand for the M&E function to ensure its funding and its sustainability for the foreseeable future.

See Why is it Important to Institutionalize Government M&E Systems?

Incentives are an important part of the demand side. There need to be strong incentives for M&E to be done well, and in particular for monitoring information and evaluation findings to be actually used. Simply having M&E information available does not guarantee that it will actually be used, whether by program managers in their day to day work, or by budget officials responsible for advising on spending options, or by a congress or parliament responsible for accountability oversight. This underscores the dangers of a technocratic view of M&E, as a set of tools with inherent merit, and the fallacy that simply making M&E information available would ensure its utilization. No governments build M&E systems because they have intrinsic merit, but because they directly support core government activities, such as the budget process, national planning, the management of ministries, agencies and programs, or to provide information in support of accountability relationships. Thus M&E systems are often linked to public sector reforms such as results-based management, performance budgeting, and evidence-based policy-making.

Another dimension to the demand side, and another success factor, is having a powerful champion -- a powerful minister or senior official who is able to lead the push to institutionalize M&E, to persuade colleagues about its priority, and about the need to devote significant resources to create a whole-of-government M&E system. Government champions have played important roles in the creation of some of the more successful government M&E systems, such as those of Chile, Australia and Colombia. However, powerful champions do not provide a guarantee of success; there are examples such as Egypt where the support of a group of key ministers for M&E has been substantially frustrated by skeptical mid-level officials.

Creating a whole-of-government M&E system -- whether focused solely on a system of performance indicators, or whether encompassing various types of evaluation and review -- is not a minor effort. It involves the recruitment and training of staff to conduct or manage M&E and to use their findings; creation of the bureaucratic infrastructure to decide which government programs should be evaluated, and what issues should be addressed in the evaluations; creation of data systems and procedures for sharing information; and procedures for reporting M&E findings; etc. Like other systems, in areas such as financial management, or procurement, it takes sustained effort over a period of years to make an M&E system operate efficiently. Thus another feature of the successful government M&E systems listed earlier is the stewardship of this process by a capable ministry; in many developed and upper middle-income countries (e.g., Australia, Canada and Chile) this has meant the finance ministry. It certainly helps to have the institutional lead of an M&E system close to the center of government (e.g., a President’s Office) or the budget process.

In working to build or strengthen a government M&E system, it helps to start with a diagnosis of what M&E functions currently exist, and their strengths and weaknesses -- both on the demand and supply sides -- and to clarify the extent of actual (as distinct from the hoped-for) extent of utilization of M&E information, as well as the particular ways in which it is being used. See Diagnostic Guides. Such diagnoses are themselves a form of evaluation, and they are useful not just from the information and insights they provide, but also because they can be a vehicle for raising with a range of stakeholders in government, civil society and the donor community the importance of M&E and the need for efforts to build a new system or strengthen existing systems. Regular reviews of progress in institutionalizing M&E are useful to identify roadblocks which have been encountered, and to help indicate possible changes in direction: most countries with well-performing M&E systems have not developed them in a linear manner -- i.e., starting with a clear understanding of what their system would look like once fully mature, and then working progressively to achieve this vision. Rather, government M&E systems have usually been developed incrementally and even in a piecemeal manner, with some false starts and blind alleys along the way. This would appear to be due partly to the different time it takes to build particular M&E functions -- a system of performance indicators vis-à-vis the conduct of program reviews or rigorous impact evaluations. It would also appear to be due to a number of mid-course corrections made as the progress, or lack of progress, with particular M&E initiatives becomes evident.

Reliable ministry data systems can help to provide the raw data on which whole-of-government M&E systems depend. Thus a diagnosis or audit of data systems and capacities can also be helpful. This would provide the starting point for any necessary rationalization of data collections or improvements in their quality. Some governments rely on external audit committees to perform regular data audits, some rely on the national audit office, while some rely principally on internal ministry audit units; some rely on central ministry checking of data provided by sector ministries, while others have no audit strategy.

The rigor, objectivity and independence of evaluation findings are important for their reliability and credibility. Chile deals with this by contracting out evaluations to external bodies such as academic institutions and consulting firms, and the process of seeking bids and awarding contracts to conduct the evaluations is entirely transparent. The downside of this approach, however, can be a lack of ownership of these evaluation findings by the sector ministries. Chile’s centrally-run system is quite rare, however. Many governments in developed countries rely on sector ministries to conduct evaluations themselves, although this raises questions about the reliability of self-evaluations.

The objective of government M&E systems is never to produce large volumes of performance information or a large number of high-quality evaluations per se; this would reflect a supply-driven approach to an M&E system. Rather, the objective is to achieve intensive utilization of whatever M&E findings exist, to ensure the M&E system is cost-effective -- utilization in support of core government functions as noted earlier. Utilization is the yardstick of “success” of an M&E system; conversely, it would be hard to convince a skeptical finance ministry that it should continue to fund an M&E system whose outputs are not being utilized. Such systems would deservedly be regarded as useless.

Another lesson is the limitations to relying on a law, decree, cabinet decision or other high-level pronouncement to create an M&E system. They can be a useful vehicle for legitimizing M&E, particularly in those countries where the presence of such a legal instrument is viewed as a necessary precondition if any government reform is to be perceived as worthwhile -- such as in Latin American and francophone countries, which have the Napoleonic system of law. But while a law or decree mandating M&E can be helpful, they are insufficient to ensure that the considerable efforts required to build an M&E system will be undertaken.

Countries have found that building a government M&E system is a long-haul effort, requiring patience and persistence. It takes time to create or strengthen data systems; to train or recruit qualified staff; to plan, manage and conduct evaluations; to build systems for sharing M&E information among relevant ministries; and to train staff to be able to use M&E information in their day-to-day work, whether that involves program operations or policy analysis and advice. Australia and Chile were able to create a well-functioning evaluation system (in terms of the quality, number and utilization of the evaluations) within four or five years; but in Colombia’s case, it has taken a decade. This is not to say that a slow and measured approach to building an M&E system is appropriate, however. Government champions will eventually depart, and the window of opportunity -- indeed, the priority a government gives to any type of public sector reform -- can close as quickly as it opened. This suggests an approach of working in a focused, purposeful, and even intense manner to build various components of the M&E system, and to seek to institutionalize them as quickly as possible.

A Diagnosis of Colombia’s National M&E System, SINERGIA

Institutionalization of Monitoring and Evaluation Systems to Improve Public Sector Management

Experience with Institutionalizing Monitoring and Evaluation Systems in Five Latin American Countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay

Institutionalization of M&E Systems in Latin America

Building Country Capacity for Monitoring and Evaluation in the Public Sector: Selected Lessons of International Experience

2002 Annual Report on Evaluation Capacity Development A Precis of this report is available in English; in French; in Spanish

The Development of Monitoring and Evaluation Capacities to Improve Government Performance in Uganda This paper is also available in French; in Spanish.

Evaluation Capacity Development in the Republic of Ireland

See also

Strengthening Capacity for Monitoring and Evaluation in Uganda: A Results Based Management Perspective This paper is also available in French; in Spanish.

Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons from Experience in Supporting Sound Governance

Comparative Insights from Colombia, China and Indonesia This paper is also available in French

Public Sector Performance: the Critical Role of Evaluation

Developing African Capacity for Monitoring and Evaluation A Precis of this seminar is available: in English; in French; in Spanish

The Role of Civil Society in Assessing Public Sector Performance in Ghana

Lessons from National Experience

Evaluation Capacity Development in Africa A Precis is available in English and in French

Evaluation Capacity Development in Asia

See also: Country Case Studies