20 Nov 2016

Parliament has approved Chapter 10 of the draft National Development Plan (NDP) 11  as presented by Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Thato Kwerepe.

The chapter sets out the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) agenda of NDP 11 and provides a comprehensive framework and processes that would help focus government efforts to achieve the Vision 2036 aspirations and NDP 11 goals.

“This would be possible through focusing attention more towards measurable outcomes and impact as opposed to focusing on inputs and outputs, as was the case in the past,” said Mr Kwerepe.

The chapter also provided the performance framework that will guide the assessment of progress towards realisation of the NDP 11 goals and objectives.

Mr Kwerepe further said government believes in continuous improvement, building on lessons drawn, achievements and challenges experienced during NDP 10.

He further said implementation of M&E would be guided by a Policy Framework based on defined principles which encompass; comprehensiveness, a demand-driven approach, performance focus, strategic instrumentalism, simplicity, user-friendliness, credibility, and accountability.

With regards to evaluation, he said it would be made a regular feature of policies, programmes and projects design and implementation; a function which he said would be integrated into the policy, planning and budgetary reforms.

Mr Kwerepe also told Parliament that National Evaluation Policy would be developed as an integral part to guide implementing entities as provided by the National Strategy Office (NSO).

He said the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in conjunction with Government Implementation Coordination Office (GICO) and Statistics Botswana would conduct mid-term and final evaluations of the NDP.

Other strategies to guide Monitoring and Evaluation of NDP 11 are capacity strengthening of human resource for both ongoing service delivery programmes and individual projects that are part of the Public Investment Management cycle.

“The aim is to produce M&E experts and M&E unit structures specific to this area, and therefore capacity building will be a continuous process,” he said. ENDS