BY
JACOB WAISWA
Monitoring and evaluation are important ingredients in project planning and management that involve gathering information about set targets and regularly checking for successes to strengthen and challenges to address and accordingly protect the set goal, objectives and activities. This helps preserve a health working relationship between the funding institution and the beneficiaries. In doing so, critical observation and record keeping are fundamental engagements.
In attempting to implement work plan, a team must be in place to do so. It must have people ready to work and ensure success basing on organizational ethics. Within the group mutual respect, responsibility, cooperation, effective communication and mutual help would be important qualities for a good and solid team ready to go.
But importantly, team and work ethics must be outlined clearly and demanded by the organization, followed by disciplinary actions (as consequences for misbehavior) to avoid bogus set-backs. Issues like data duplication, inconsistencies due to concoctions must not be tolerated and regular checks could be considered every time and again.
To some organizations, working as a team could mean no one takes leadership of the team. Instead, equity for them might be the norm. However, given the different motives of team members, some could chose to be lax and only pretend as though have been working when a supervisor pops in. There are people, who perform in presence of only their bosses rather than a mere colleague like maize weevils which not until the boiler heats up that it would be reminded to come out.
Remember also that other team members could find it difficult to report a problem team member for fear of creating bad blood, yet at the same time struggling with the entire load of work, and fishing same rewards (remuneration) at the end of the day. Indeed it could be a nail in the feet of most active members and as though some form of injustice.
Some members of the team may choose to display negative qualities like refusal to accept suggestions and advice, parasiting and only wait for rewards, forgeries and playing about with figures to avoid field work, in-fighting that could force others out of work, digressing from organizational core values that might potentially fail implementation process. These are true features of anarchy common in societies without leadership as much as those with weak leaders. How possible would it be for a trailer to roll without a driver? What a joke!
Create a good working relationship with the local population. This could yield progressive results like volunteering to participate in surveys, providing security and at times; logistics. However, so many organizations have set different trends that up to now have damaged the liberal element for participatory decision making.
Almost wherever one could go, money must be carried as fuel to sort of motivate desired participants take on roles in research. And because they are sure of monetary rewards, in many instances, make more unnecessary exaggerations and mistakes than genuine responses, since focus then would be just money and excitement in return.
Understanding community behavior could have its own benefits. To note is that people would have different life styles and cultures they express. For example in most areas outside town, so-called lunch time could be actually an on-going garden work, while real lunch time sets in later at about 3pm. This would then mean about 1 hour of letting the food settle or body to complete digestion process before they could think of attending any community meeting.
Besides, field worker might be tempted to impose his or her own values as regards to meeting time and of organizing of community activities. Such would only fail organizational programmes and lead to misfiring for every selected-to-do task.
One of the most hectic times could be active data collection along side activities undertaken. It would be a time when no excuses of headache, illness and hunger mean anything to a “true” field officer. This is so because such data would be the basis of final reporting phase shared out with stakeholders. Therefore, accuracy at primary data collection would be pertinent.
During the course of collecting data to assess impact, targeted population as expected must be involved in the review process and approvals -moreover, taken in writing by way of commenting, while ensuring that important features like gender, age, professional, location, status are keenly considered as organizational focus may demand. This would not only help give grassroots’ much desired response, but also could help build donor and stake-holder confidence.
Certain activities like sports, drama, and music could be encouraged to reinforce participation rather than money. Money-culture is failing sincerity of research results, reports and later, policy. Inadequate resources like limited allowances for the team that could lead to de-motivation too could be reviewed and immediately addressed. In doing so, level inflation in a country must be put in perspective.
In addition, regular meetings could be organized to streamline team activities and solve problems as they arise. Whilst at meetings, members must never forget to write down minutes for every meeting. This could serve as evidence whenever needed in case of an exceedingly troublesome member, and as a basis of disciplinary action. Experience has shown that with effective communication wounds could be healed between people through well organized, well-intentioned and moderated meetings.
On the part of the organization or employers, regular and at times unplanned visits could be made to check progress and records of what might have so far been achieved. In fact, there could be a big-brother phenomenon to ensure desired order and pace of events as set by the firm.
