Workshop on the M&E Component of the Ghana MCA Program

Wednesday, 1 Aug 2007, A Workshop to explain the Monitoring and Evaluation component of the Ghana MCA Program brought to the fore issues regarding how M&E can assist in smoothening the path of the implementation process. The Workshop also highlighted some concerns which might come up during implementation and which could impede progress.According to the M&E Director Abigail Abandoh-Sam “it is a good thing to find out earlier what the challenges are, and fix them before they become problems”.

The CEO Martin Eson-Benjamin applauded the in-house consultative process. The consultations would help to improve understanding of the various projects and create synergies that will speed up and facilitate Project Implementation. The Chief Operating Officer Matthew Armah, reminded Project Managers to ensure that their Terms of References for hiring Consultants, and Implementing Entity Agreements reflected specific tasks which will lead to meeting the targets set under M&E and the overall Program Goal. Project Managers should also ensure that Workplans of Consultants conform to key targets and the implementation targets in their own Workplans.

Professor Chris Udry from the Yale University, USA and Professor Ernest Arteetey of the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research of the University of Ghana gave presentations on the methodologies which could be used to measure the progress and impact of the MiDA Program and to evaluate how MiDA’s activities would affect people’s lives, especially household income. One key methodology that will apply is “Randomization” which involves randomly assigning study subjects into “treatment” and “control groups”. Randomization is to be used to discount flaws associated with other methods of Evaluation. Thus, data flaws such as “self selection” bias and the time variables that might affect the quality or reliability of data collection during the Compact Implementation period will be removed.