DEVELOPING A MONITORING AND EVALUATION (M&E) CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM TO IMPROVE DEMOCRATIC GOOD GOVERNANCE

Year 2019, Volume: 11 Issue: 2, 86 - 101, 01.07.2019

Tshilidzi Sithomola Christelle J. Auriacombe

Abstract

This article explains the relationship between democratic societies’ needs and
evaluation approaches in terms of various paradigms, methods and values of
evaluation and develops a classification in terms of the types of evaluation needed
to meet the needs of a democratic society. The article also underscores the
importance of M&E as a mechanism to measure the effectiveness of service
delivery, so that the public sector can facilitate better democratic governance
outcomes in terms of its programmes, policies, interventions, projects, democracy
models and the type of evaluation required. The methodology entails a desktop
analysis of literature and official documents to conceptualise and contextualise
the area of investigation. The methodological approach focused on specific
dimensions of unobtrusive research techniques, such as conceptual and document
analysis. Generally, unobtrusive research techniques investigate social behaviour
to remove bias and encourage conceptual analysis. To attribute meaning to the
data, the information generated is examined through an in-depth process of
intellectual analysis, integration, classification, reflection and synthesis. The
article found that merely having a clear knowledge base of the history and ‘state
of the art’ evaluation or programme evaluation theory is not a clear-cut way to
ensure successful evaluation practice. Furthermore, every theory of practice is
likely to be more effective in certain settings than in others. The ultimate goal is to
introduce improvements to the services they provide, based on a classification of
M&E findings. 

Keywords

Democracy, Evaluation paradigms, Monitoring and Evaluation, M&E practitioners, M&E approaches, Programme evaluation

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