The Nigerian government plans to formulate a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Policy to among other things, reduce waste and improve the quality of public spending.
This followed the presentation of a memorandum by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, to Thursday’s virtual meeting of the National Economic Council, NEC, presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Governor of Nassarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, who briefed the media after the meeting, said that the policy would also provide “independent objective assessment of the merit of public policy strategies, programme as well as projects” and “a source of reliable meaningful information for the citizens in order to assess government policy.”
Objectives of the M&E Policy
According to Sule, the objectives of the National M&E Policy were “to establish monitoring and evaluation as a source of credible information so as to guide government’s decisions, planning, resource allocation and expenditure; to strengthen accountability and feedback by the government to Nigerians; and to provide effective guide for the MDAs for the conduct of M&E functions.
The policy will also enhance coordination of monitoring and evaluation processes within the Nigerian public sector for standardization in practice of M&E.
We noted that the policy recommends that policies by our key programmes and projects must be evaluated and summary of evaluation shall be presented to the Federal Executive Council and the State Executive Council at the state levels.
We also noted that there’s going to be the need to establish a National Council on Evaluation under the chairmanship of the Minister of Finance who is responsible for the M&E.”
Sule said that state governments were expected to domesticate the National Monitoring and Evaluation Policy for effective performance tracking as well as continuous monitoring.
Nneka Ukachukwu
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