PHOTO: Officials at the training venue
By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
About 18 County-based staff of government ministries, agencies and commissions from Maryland, River Gee, Grand Kru and Grand Gedeh, have completed a four day result based planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting training in Harper, Maryland County.
The training was organized by the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit at the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning with the support from the United Nations Children Funds (UNICEF).
The capacity building training was held under the theme “strengthening sub-national staff and officials capacities for developing effectiveness and efficiencies”.
The objective was to increase and strengthen the knowledge and skills of the MACs sub-offices staff and county officials in contemporary results-based monitoring and reporting to improve the quality of their reports on outcomes of County Development Agenda.
The professionalism, efficiency, result-orientation and trustworthiness was conducted by a hired consultant administered the four days sessions.
The consultant, Barward Johnson, informed participants that the project is a temporary undertaking to create a unique product, service or result.
“A project has a defined start and end point and specific objectives that, when attained, signify completion,” he said; adding: “ this means that the projects are unique in terms of the outcome they produce, how they are conducted, staffing, stakeholders, resources are used, but temporary is when they do not have perpetual existence; they have a specific end point.”
According to him, a project design refers to the process of making a conceptual framework of a project to show how the project will be initiated, implemented, monitored and evaluated.
He noted that projects should always be structured as possible solutions to identified and defined problems.
In a project, problem and solution analysis is a critical methodology for designing projects.
He stated that the problem tree is a useful tool in defining problems, their relationships and essentially the rationale for a project.
“Remember a project is a solution to an existing problem, project design should start with the identification and subsequent analysis of the problem you intend to solve’’ he said.
He cautioned participants to observe the third wave of COVID-19 in the country, and to take all preventive and social distancing measures as prescribed by the Ministry of Health and the Incident Management Team.
The four day training workshop was attended by Development Superintendents, County Inspectors, County Project Planners, Regional Development officers, County Monitoring officers from Maryland, River Gee, Grand Kru and Grand Gedeh Counties including the Ministry of Finance Development Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Analyst.