Members of Ghana Monitoring and Evaluation need adequate capacity building

Mr Kwabena Agyei Boakye, Chief Director of the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation has called for frequent capacity building for members of the Ghana Monitoring and Evaluation Forum (GMEF) to sharpen their skills to take up both domestic and international projects.

He also appealed to them to cluster their members into various areas such as; Health, Education, Infrastructure, Agriculture among others to become handy for prospective clients.

Mr Boakye made this call during a three-day annual conference of GMEF in Accra on the theme; “Over a decade of promoting M&E in Ghana: Achievements, challenges and prospects.”

The GMEF was established in 2008 as a network of public-spirited individuals, who seek to strengthen policy, programme and project delivery in Ghana, through the promotion of open dialogue around monitoring and evaluation issues to influence development opportunities.

Its mission is to strengthen efficiency and effectiveness in the conduct of M&E information for public sector goals.

The forum also facilitates policy review and planning processes and enhances public sector management and decision making, improves accountability and transparency in the utilization of public resources.

The conference attracted over 50 participants who would undertake training programmes in their area within three days.

Mr Boakye said Monitoring and Evaluation was a dynamic environment that needed sufficient skills and constant upgrading to be able to handle the issues at stake and called on the members to indulge in more training programmes to reach the height of the profession.

He said Ghana was moving higher in terms of M&E, but added that tools for making good reports and funding were crucial in attaining greater heights and urged the management to identify the training needs of its members and act accordingly.

He appealed to the younger ones to take their time in acquiring adequate skills and knowledge to become marketable, rather than rushing to acquire wealth at their early ages.

Madam Dede Bedu-Addo, Coordinator of GMEF said since their establishment, they were able to provide capacity building to both private and public sector organisations, including; the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, PPMED.

She said they also engaged a lot of Development Partners and was having cordial relations with UNICEF that had been their major partner.

She gave the assurance that the GMEF would soon come out with a policy that would leverage their partnership with government agencies, private sector and Civil Society Organisations.

Topics such as; Transforming Data for new insights in M&E data analysis/visualization with tableau, Ethical consideration in the ownership and rights over-evaluation data in Ghana among others would be treated.

She however mentioned funding and committed available leaders as their major challenges that they were working around the clock to change.