RFP-WARF Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation, Banjul, The Gambia - Day 3

Day 3 - Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation Workshop, Banjul, The Gambia

The 3rd day of the Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) had a particular agenda: it consisted in sort of a workshop within a workshop. The objective was to validate an M&E study undertaken for the project and was also the official opening of the workshop.

The meetings began with an official welcoming, where the acting Project Coordinator of the Rural Finance Project made an opening speech. His words were followed by an intervention by the Country Programme Manager for The Gambia and then by the welcoming of a representative of the Ministry of Agriculture who shared his views on the importance of M&E.

The rest of the day was dedicated to the presentation and critical review of the PM&E study conducted for the Rural Finance PRoject (RFP).

After a thorough presentation from one of the consultants who participated in the study to design the M&E system for RFP, the participants broke off into groups to discuss the overall valididty of the study by specifically looking at the roles identified, data collection methods, indicators identified and management of the system.

In the plenary, it was agreed that good preliminary work has been done, however, some more in debth work needs to be done on indicators (especially on 1st and 2nd level indicators) as the study is concentrated mainly on third level impact indicators.

The recommendation of the day is that the comments made on the report should be consolidated and submitted to the consultant and to WARF so that the report can be reviewed accordingly and finalised.

Tomorrow the training will continue and on Friday we are headed to the field to test what we have learned!