Representatives from 30 non governmental, community and faith based organizations working in HIV and Aids today completed a three day training workshop on project evaluation and monitoring. It is being sponsored by the National Aids Commission along with the Caribbean Health and Research Council. The facilitator is Dr. Ansari Ameen from the Caribbean Health and Research Council and he told us what it was all about.
Dr. Ansari Ameen, Facilitator
“We need to make sure that whatever resources, accountability that whatever resources are being provided by donors or national governments or so forth, people want to know that their funds are well spent and that they are being used in an efficient manner. So monitoring and evaluation lets people look at the results of the project to see if they’ve made a difference. The monitoring aspect will allow them to look at the efficiency of the project; are you implementing things on schedule; are the resources being well used, as well as when you do your monitoring you look at the quality of what you are doing.
One of the things we are doing differently is that in the past I think a lot of times people do training, they come and do a training and leave and what are we doing this afternoon for example is working with the organizations to identify what are the follow up needs. So we will work hand in hand with HIV/Aids Commission here to provide follow up to these organizations to make sure that they actually start applying the concepts they have learned and we will identify some of their specific technical assistance needs. So we are hoping to not just be another talk shop. We will follow up and provide ongoing support.
When they leave here, they’ll have a fundamental understanding of what is monitoring and evaluation, why it is important, and all the basic concepts related to it.”
Dr. Ameen says this is only phase one and there will be follow-up workshops.
