1- a)Collecting information or data is just one part of the process of monitoring and

evaluation. What is meant by data analysis?

After you have collected your data you will need to try to understand what the data is
telling you. Data analysis is that process of blending and understanding the information given by
them. It can be seen as a series of steps that must be followed. In his article intitled «What Is Data
Analysis and Why Is It Important?», Jay Sridhar define the data analysis as the process of evaluating
data using analytical and statistical tools to discover useful information and aid in business decision
making. There are several data analysis methods including data mining, text analytics, business
intelligence and data visualization.

We can identify more than four steps of data analysis :

 Reflecting – this step presents the needs of the evaluation and what the data analysis
must answer ;
 Collating – which involves bringing together the information. Quantitative data
may need to be organised through statistical analysis or using basic calculations.
Qualitative information needs to be organised thematically ;
 Describing – you should provide a description of the facts which have emerged from
the information gathered ;
 Interpreting – this step deals with trying to understand the significance of
your data and why things happened as they did.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-is-data-analysis/

Monitoring and evaluation: a guide for community projects, November 2012 - Geoff Bates, Lisa
Jones -Centre for Public Health, Liverpool JMU

1 – (b) State any three uses of monitoring and evaluation results.

There are many uses of monitoring and evaluation results. The results can be use by the project
team to improve the project interventions, they can be communicated to the public to search the
backing and strenghen the project institutionally and they can contribute to the global
understanding of what works.
  Improve the project interventions- using the M&E results keeps the staff of the project in
a «learning mode». It helps them to understand about how and why the project is working
and to make the decisions about the best use of resources ;
 Strenghen the project institutionally – the M&E results can be communicated at the local
level, state level and national level to help the stakeholders and the community to
understand what the program is doing, how well it is meeting its objectives and whether
there are ways that progress can be improved. Sharing results can help ensure social,
financial and political support.
 Global understanding of what works – the experts and project workers can use the M&E
results of different projects to realise what strategies are having or not having the
intended impact and under which circumstances. Sharing these results contributes to the
global understanding of what works and what doesn’t work.

1 – c) Describe any seven factors that may lead to project failure

Many projects fail to live up to their promises and produce disappointing outcomes on
completion. Charles R. Swindoll declared that « Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how
you react to it ». This means that the key steps of a project are more when it is implemented. We
can identify seven factors that may lead to project failure as :

o Poor preparation of the project ;

When your are preparing a project, you need to have a clear picture of what you are going to do
in advance as much as possible. You need to know what project success looks like at the
beginning and don’t loose focus of it. It is necessary to know how you will execute your tasks in
order to meet everyone’s expectations.

o Lack of community/beneficiaries’ support;

Even if it could take much time, the project team must have meetings with beneficiaries and
other stakeholders to explain them the objectives of the project and the rôle they must play. The
team have to discuss in return about all the stakeholders’ expectations. During the project
implementation, a special interest must be given to inform the stakeholders about the progress of
the project and to take back their feelings. Are the participants satisfied with the program ? How
much and what kind of difference did the project make on the community ? Is the community
realising that the work has a specific value ? If the stakeholders realise that a benefit is coming
from the initiative, the project has a better chance of gaining broad support. In many case people
may have to help in carrying out the effort for the project to reach some positive results. They
may be asked to change their behavior or to participate in activities.

o Inadequate tracking and documentation of the project ;

The responsability of the project manager is to track milestones of the project by seeing whether
the activities are meeting expectations. It is at this level that comes the necessity of a good
monitoring and evaluation. Through tracking, the work could be improved by understanding
exactly what affects progress on the issue. You can take actions according to the results of your
evaluation, to adjust your work, identify where more ressources are needed to complete the
project on time.

o Bad leadership/management ;
All the people at each management-level is reponsible to ensure that the project is successfull.
Here comes the question about education level and experience of the team members. Is their
function matching with their background? Are they capable of holding a good monitoring and
evaluation and take the decisions accordingly ? For a project to succeed, each person must be
keept at a level where he can be efficient. The knowledge in producing report, making estimates,
analysing data and interacting with stakeholders is necessary in the team.

o Lack of funders’ support ;

Funders are people without who even if there is evidence of emergency to cope with, nothing can
be done. They have the financial power and are the one to decide if the project can be
implemented. They are interested to understand the real impact of the project, to help them in
consequence to evaluate their involvement. May be the results are not good and resources must
be re-directed towards activities having more effects or the project in the whole should be
stopped. When it is obvious that the project is bringing much positive effects to the community,
many funders can ask to join the initiative and increase its scale.

o Inaccurate time, effort and cost estimation

There may be times when the cost estimates are completely off, the project is condemned to
stop. This situation must be prevented by identifying the lack of resources early on. This can
occur when the real cost of the activities are far beyong the planned estimates. It is good to visit
the locality where the project will take place and look for all the costs.

o Little communication
Whether it’s between upper management, middle or with the team, it’s desastrous to have poor
communication. Everyone should feel free to come forward to express their concern or give
suggestions. When everyone is on the same page and there’s transparency, workflow is at an
optimum level.

The communication is also supposed to be held between the project team and the stakeholders.
This help the name and purpose of the project to be recognize, and that the stakeholders have a
positive impression of the project.

2 - Identify any six parts of a monitoring and evaluation report

An M&E report contains many parts such as : summary, background information about the
program, description of the evaluation, results of the evaluation, discussion of results, costs and
benefits.

 Summary – It is a brief overview of the evaluation outlining major findings and

recommendations. It takes two to three pages and should include :
o What was evaluated ?
o Why was the evaluation done ?
o What are the mayor findings and recommandations ?
 Background information about the program – this section presents the goals, strategic
plan, organizational structure and other essential elements of the program. It can include :
o Origins of the program ;
o Program goals ;
o Clients involved with the program ;
o Administrative/organizational structure ;
o Etc.
 Description of the evaluation – this part explains why an evaluation was done and what
you hoped to learn from it.
 Results of the evaluation – this part explains what your findings were in detail. The
section may include :
o Excerpts from interviews ;
o Testimonials from participants and clients ;
o Questionnaire results ;
o Test scores
o Etc.
3.Why is feedback an important component of project monitoring and evaluation?

Giving feedback means presenting the data on accomplishments that is getting from the
evaluation to those involved in the initiative – line staff and volunteers, as well as administrators
and board members. The presentation of feedback depends on the method of evaluation which
was held and the type of data gathered. It may be presented in the form of tables and graphs,
some as narrative, and some perhaps as portfolios or even audio or videotape.

• To help community leadership assess progress towards meeting the initiative's goals
• To help see areas wherein the members of the initiative may want to put more energy
• To help detect when too much energy or effort is spent in areas less central to the
mission

• To provide the opportunity to celebrate small accomplishments

• To help the initiative focus on the "big picture" by seeing cumulative accomplishments
over time
• To provide funders the opportunity to help re-direct the initiative towards activities
more directly related to the mission
• To provide funders the opportunity to see and reward the accomplishments of
the initiative
REFERENCES

 https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-is-data-analysis/
 Monitoring and evaluation: a guide for community projects, November 2012 - Geoff
Bates, Lisa Jones -Centre for Public Health, Liverpool JMU,
 Dilpoma in monitoring and evaluation – module 4 – 2018,
 A Guide to Monitoring and Evaluating Adolescent Reproductive Health Programs –
article in The science of improving lives
 https://www.datapine.com/blog/data-interpretation-methods-benefits-problems/