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Inadequacy of the Contents of Previous M&E Reports
The Millennium Declaration provided the opportunity for Nigeria to re-focus on the MDGs as
important pillars of the country‘s development agenda including its Vision 20:2020. The DRGs
provided the much-needed additional resources specifically targeted at the MDGs and
highlighted the importance of measuring the results of the country‘s development initiatives.
With the establishment of OSSAP-MDGs to track and coordinate expenditures on the MDGs,
Nigeria became one of the first African nations to demonstrate ample political will to adopt a
results-based approach towards poverty reduction and improvement in the living standards of
its people. The increasing visibility of OSSAP-MDGs as an organ of transparency and
accountability towards achievement of the MDGs and the popular perception that the DRGs
and the OSSAP-MDGs represent the most credible channels for achieving the MDGs and
successfully fighting poverty in Nigeria have prompted OSSAP-MDGs to start demanding for
results-based M&E processes including the preparation of M&E reports that focus not only on
organizational activities and outputs but, more importantly, on actual outcomes. To achieve
this goal OSSAP-MDGs was desirous of avoiding the shortcomings of past M&E reports which
hitherto:
Provided little in the way of narratives detailing what the challenges of
implementation were and if they were overcome and how.
Gave little assessment of why some projects were successful or described the nature
of the best practices observed.
Did not provide sufficient detail on how the DRG interventions were utilized and the
effects of the projects on the lives of the people in the targeted areas.
Failed to provide an indication of the sustainability of the projects.
Absence of a Results-based M&E Foundation
Although the consultants and CSOs who were in charge of the M&E processes that resulted in
previous M&E reports were guided by a plan and set of procedures for data collection and
analyses to monitor the progress of DRG projects against a number of pre-determined
performance indicators, little or no attention was paid to addressing the complexities and
critical nuances of the difficult M&E environment and contexts at the different levels of data
collection and analyses. What is worse, it is not obvious that the results-oriented M&E needs
of OSSAP-MDGs itself and the purpose for which the data that was being collected were to be
used were clearly understood by many of the key players and stakeholders. Consequently by
jumping straight to building and using a set of M&E procedures and templates for tracking the
performance of the DRG without paying adequate attention to existing political, organizational,
cultural and administrative M&E realities on the ground, a number of serious bottlenecks were
encountered leading to difficult challenges including those relating to but not limited
toorganizational roles, responsibilities, capabilities, incentives, etc., including:
Lack of appreciation of the critical importance of a Logical Framework for each and
every project to be monitored and the associated Results Chain/Logic Chain that
should form the basis of an effective M&E process. This resulted, in many instances, in
confusion about what the M&E process should be measuring and for what purpose,
thus leading to inconsistency and lack of standardization of data coming from OSSAP-
MDGs, the National Teams, the State Teams, and the sector heads.
Inadequate collaboration and cooperation between and among state supervising M&E
consultants and federal, state, and local government officials in identifying, taking
ownership, and tracking of DRG funded projects.
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