Module 2

Assessment:

One needs to constantly review, monitor and evaluate NGO's as they are constantly changing and evolving. Thus monitoring and evaluation activities are of critical importance to them. They are the means by which change and evolutions can be guided.

Monitoring and evaluation are also valuable ways of capturing accumulated experiences and expertise that is all too easily lost when rapid changes occur either within the organisations or in the environment in which they operate.

In addition, many NGO's carry out their own evaluation and monitoring, and most often they prefer having external evaluations, and all the disruption and uncertainty they can cause, imposed on them by others.

NGOs are thus increasingly recognising the need to enhance their work by having their own procedures in place for constant monitoring and regular evaluation.

More and more NGO's mount such exercises in respect of particular programmes and projects. This is normally done by

• Writing down the objectives of a particular program or project and in the end finding out whether these objectives have been achieved by taking either a verbal or written feedback from the target group.

Less common are wholesale reviews or evaluation of entire organisations. This is normally done when you have to report to a funding agency. The evaluation is done by

• Making a report about all the activities conducted
• The feedback received from the target group
• The expense incurred and
• How it would help the organisation in meeting it's objectives.

There are number of organisations established to assist NGO's with evaluation and /or with reviewing or generally reflecting upon their work, some national and some international in their scope.