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Section One: Introduction
The Task
This consultancy was commissioned by the State Partnership for Accountability,
Responsiveness, and Capacity (SPARC) of the the UK‘s Department for International
Development (DFID) as part of its on-going support to strengthen public financial and public
service management, policy and strategy in Nigeria aimed at improving availability and
accessibility of information on public expenditure and opening up public expenditure
processes. The consultancy was meant to support the efforts of the Office of the Special
Assistant to the President on the MDGs (OSSAP-MDGs) to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) by scaling up development activities to the State and Local
Government levels through an approach that synergizes the mutually reinforcing requirements
of the MDGs and on-going reform and capacity development efforts of the Nigerian
Government at the Federal, State, and Local Government levels.
In 2005 the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FGN) secured a debt write-off from the Paris Club and
the London Club group of creditors and pledged to channel this ―Debt Relief Gains‖ (DRGs) to
projects and programmes that would help achieve the MDGs. The Office of the Senior Special
Assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals was created to guide the
expenditure of the DRGs through standard channels of government. Even though Nigeria‘s
poverty reduction strategies have entailed significant investments in MDGs sectors for decades
especially at State and Local Government levels where constitutional responsibility for poverty
reduction lies, the volume of the financial resources on offer have been inadequate and the
management and impact of these investments have not often been very effective. The debt
relief and the conditionalities associated with how they should be invested provided the
government with a new opportunity to demonstrate its willingness and ability not only for
reforms but, above all, for showing results.
One of the key tasks of the OSSAP-MDGs is to measure and report on the results and gains
from the DRG investments across the country. This is because it is important for OSSAP-MDGs
to find out and accurately report on whether or not the DRG investments were making an
impact and to identify obstacles and barriers. OSSAP-MDGs was concerned that, even though
its visibility as an organ of transparency and accountability towards the achievement of the
MDGs was not in doubt but was even in the ascendancy, its past M&E reports fell short of
painting a complete and compelling picture of the performance of the DRG projects. It
therefore sought the assistance of SPARC to engage a consultant to help rectify this
shortcoming in the content of the 2009 DRG M&E Report.
A summary of the specific tasks of the consultancy include:
1. Assist the NMET and the SMETs in producing a 2009 M&E Report that: accurately
reflects the realities of the interventions funded by DRGs; provides an overarching
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