Australian Aid to PNG - AusAID

only assist within the context of the partner government’s own policies,practices and management capacity.The need for much more rigorous monitoring, measurement, and evaluation ofAustralian aid is crucial given the volume of Australian funding for Papua NewGuinea’s development since independence, and its significant developmentchallenges. Such performance information needs to be accessible not only atthe activity and sector level but also, importantly, at the broadest level, in thecontext of Papua New Guinea’s development policies and developmentprogress, as well as in the context of Australia’s own objectives.AusAID already has a range of systems in place that could be used to improvethe quality of baseline data and regular monitoring and assessment of projectand sector-level performance. At present, logical framework matrices(logframes) are prepared for all aid activities, which identify performanceindicators and link these to higher order objectives as well as to project-specificoutputs. These should (and usually do) establish a framework for the sort ofbaseline data that ought to be collected, and the extent of ongoing monitoringthat would be required to assess performance against impact indicators. Theresults of such monitoring should routinely be documented as part of theexisting reporting requirements for projects. This would then allow moreeffective impact assessment of project outcomes and achievements at projectcompletion. It would also provide a valuable basis for the conduct ofsubsequent ex-post or cluster evaluations.The Project Completion Report (PCR) format in AusGUIDE explicitly requires themanaging contractor to make a preliminary judgement about the impact of theactivity. In practice however, most reporting is confined to specific, verifiableoutputs. Few project completion reports comment on broader developmentimpacts and, where they do, the comments tend to be confined tounsubstantiated assertions. This is probably because baseline data were notrequired to be collected at the outset of most projects, making subsequentperformance assessment difficult. The paucity of performance information is alsoa function of the very small number of ex-post evaluations that have been done.Improving the information base on which to assess the development impact ofAustralia’s aid requires some relatively straightforward changes in AusAID’scurrent processes, to develop an integrated monitoring and evaluation system.For example, design teams should be required to identify appropriate baselinedata to allow measurement of performance and impact as well as outputs. Ifnot done during the design phase, the conduct of a baseline survey should be apriority during the inception phase of project implementation. This processshould document the methodology required for the project to monitor changesThe Contribution of Australian Aid to Papua New Guinea’s Development 1975–2000 53