3RP Information Management (IM), Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), and Reporting Workshop

13 October 2014, Amman

Workshop Report & Recommendations

Aim of Meeting

The aims of the workshop were to: develop common understandings of M&E and IM concepts and share information across the countries on current practices; discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the current RRP M&E/Reporting processes, including financial tracking; compare the 3RP draft country submissions' indicators, discuss regional commonalities and potential regional indicators; and make recommendations to the Regional Technical Committee on ways forward/approaches to the 3RP regional M&E/Reporting processes.

This report gives a thematic overview of the issues discussedand points raised by participants, the recommendations, and participants list. Further information, including the agenda and presentations made at the workshop are available at

M&E Frameworks & Tools

Discussions centred on the need for well-developed M&E Frameworks to ensure accountability and reporting ‘upwards’ to donors, but also to assist in feeding back to field-level for programme monitoring purposes. In order to maintain a robust framework, operations were encouraged to develop M&E plans that would establish baselines and means of verification for tracking progress, identify knowledge gaps, manage responsibilities, and identify capacity building needs and opportunities. Indicators need to be well-defined before monitoring can start. Common challenges to be explored in terms of indicators include what goes into an indicator, the indicator’s unit of measurement, and disaggregation. There are a host of tools and products in place in currently in the operations including dashboards, info kits, maps, and digital tools like Activityinfo and Excel 4WS.

Output & Outcome Indicators

Theresults structure of the3RP will report on output indicators at the output level and outcome indicators at the objective level. One challenge in building the 3RP dashboard will be that the current RRP reporting does not distinguish between outcome and output indicators, so these will need to be well defined from the start for the 3RP. In most countries, the 3RP will include separate output indicators for the Refugee and Resilience Component, but will have joint indicators at the outcome level. It is important that progress on outputs and delivery against funding are consistently reported, no matter the component.

Resilience Indicators

There was discussion on how to distinctively capture the results (scale/depth) of longer term resilience-building interventions, as well as how to show their complementarities with the results of humanitarian support under the Refugee Component). The Resilience Component is expected to reflect the results of national and subnational delivery capacity development (human, infrastructure, institutional, policy) support as well as self-reliance building support for both refugees and members of impacted communities. Some of the challenges associated with resilience-type indicators were discussed, including how to design target numbers of beneficiaries for activities around capacity building, legal or institutional change. An area-based approach could be useful for measuring resilience programming that targets infrastructure/local authorities (not households).

Impact Monitoring

The challenges associated with monitoring and reporting on higher level impact indicators were discussed. Donors are very interested in what change we were able to bring about with the interventions, not just what was delivered/produced. In-depth thematic and qualitative surveys would need resourcing and commitment to achieve baseline data and data over time. For some of the indicators currently being used in the RRP the means of verification are unclear, as are the baselines and thus the impact is hard to quantify. Impact indicators can often cross sectors so it is important not to ‘silo’ these.

Regional Indicators

M&E should be bottom-up and country driven, while still being regionally coherent across the 3RP. In this respect, the challenge of ensuring that a set of indicators could be reported at the regional level was discussed, and some examples of potential indicators specific to resilience were presented. During the afternoon session, participants compared the draft log-frames from each country, by sector, to confirm or suggest areas of regional commonality upon which a set of regional indicators for the 3RP can be based. Those suggestions have been noted by the 3RP Secretariat and provided to country operations to further assist in the drafting/refining process for the country plans.

Gender

There was discussion of the gender marker which has scoredeach sector in each of the draft 3RP country abstracts already submitted, to show to what extent gender has been taken into account in the narrative, needs assessments, activities and indicators of the plan. This kind of measuring helps ensure equal access to services, helps to avoid losing gains in the gender equality arena, and enhances accountability for gender equality. Existing indicators should be at the least disaggregated and the specific gender indicators proposed during the workshop should be considered, as should a specific genderdashboard. Specific regional gender indicators were proposed for consideration.

Financial Tracking

The complexities of financial tracking and reporting under the current RRP were discussed, including the interaction between UNHCR’s reporting mechanism and the OCHA (Financial Tracking System). Donors are demanding greater detail in reporting on funds received, at the least being able to regularly report on funds received by sector in each country. The current arrangement tracks only humanitarian funding, whereas the 3RP will also need to track development funding. Options for tools to undertake such tracking were presented and discussed, including a Project/Activity 4Ws tool being rolled out by/for UNDP in Lebanon and Jordan, and a non-humanitarian Fund Tracking Toolbeing rolled out by the RCO in Lebanon.

Recommendations

Regional Dashboard:

  • An integrated regional dashboard should be maintained for both refugee and resilience components.
  • Outcome level indicators for each sector (joint refugee/resilience at the Objective level) should be clearly defined.
  • Each sector should have at least two SMART indicators (SMART) at the output level: at least one for the refugee component and one for the resilience component.
  • For the regional indicators, need to ensure comparability across countries
  • Need systematic monitoring (ie: monthly, quarterly, mid-year), with possibility of different data at different times.
  • Consider gender dashboard and/or rigorous analysis to be included (minimum disaggregation) on sector dashboards.

Financial Tracking:

  • Need quarterly publishing of funding received by sector and by refugee/resilience component.
  • Need to include carry-over.
  • Need to stock-take current country arrangements and examine (UNDP/UNHCR/OCHA/RCO and national aid coordination) systems for tracking.

General:

  • Examine options for regional training/support/toolkits on resilience/gender/systems (Activity Info etc).
  • Examine options to track & invest in M&E and data collection (baselines/impact surveys).
  • Examine options for single portal in the 3RP region (building on existing data portal).
  • Examine possibility of Regional M&E Protocol.
  • Examine possibility of M&E Section in Regional/Country Chapters.
  • Collate feedback on country log-frames/regional indicators (final session) and send to countries

Participants

Tadi Hamdan / Vulnerability Expert / - / -
Paul Bonard / 3RP Advisor / UNDP / Egypt
Marious Buga / Senior Programme Officer / UNHCR / Egypt
Federica Gino / Community Services Officer / Intersos / Iraq
Rosemary Willey-Al'Sanah / 3RP Advisor / UNDP / Iraq
Alexis Ariza / Planning/Analysis Officer / UNHCR / Iraq
Shadman Mahmoud / Information Management Officer / UNHCR / Iraq
Mohammed Al-Zerkani / Senior Programme Assistant / UNHCR / Iraq
Elisabeth Vikman / Reg Ass. Manager/Jordan Coordinator / REACH / Jordan
Majida Alassaf / Programme Manager / UNDP / Jordan
Hawraa Harkous / Information Management Officer / UNHCR / Jordan
Mukesh Karn / Associate Information Management Officer / UNHCR / Jordan
Merrin Waterhouse / Gender Specialist / UNHCR / Jordan
Wali Ahadi / Information Management Officer / OCHA / Lebanon
Max Halty / M&E/IM / UNDP / Lebanon
Bastien Revel / Coordinator - Social Cohesion / UNDP / Lebanon
Afke Bootsman / UNDP / Lebanon
Remo Fambri / Information Management Officer / UNHCR / Lebanon
Hrayr Wannis / M&E / UNICEF / Lebanon
Tarek Hamam / Coordination Officer / UNHCR / Lebanon
Beatrix Buecher / IM, M&E Coordinator / CARE / Regional
Rene Verduijn / FSIS / FAO / Regional
Erik Kastlander / Head, IAV / OCHA / Regional
Jason Pronyk / Advisor, SRF / UNDP / Regional
Amr Ragab / UNDP / Regional
Wladimir Nikoluk / UNDP / Regional
Nathalie Bouche / Regional Team Leader, Incl. Growth and Dev / UNDP / Regional
Emal Nazir / M&E Officer / UNFPA / Regional
Jennifer Miquel / GBV Specialist / UNFPA / Regional
Ben Farrell / Senior External Relations Officer / UNHCR / Regional
Musa Al Assad / Senior Information Management Associate / UNHCR / Regional
Marina Throne-Holst / Senior Inter-Agency & Donor Relations Officer / UNHCR / Regional
Iain Murray / IM/M&E / UNICEF / Regional
Fawad Raza / IMO / WFP / Regional
Louise Gentzel / Senior Reports Officer / WFP / Regional
Eba Pasha / Public Health Officer / WHO / Regional
Emma Diggle / Public Health and Information Management / WHO / Regional
Filippo Pompili / Regional M&E / WFP / Regional
Jos de La Haye / TL Governance PB / UNDP / Regional
Ilona Milner / RM Specialist / UNICEF / Regional
Sandra Pompey / CManagement / UNICEF / Regional
Karin Friedrich / S A Sub-regional development coordinator / UNDP / Regional
Umar Daraz / IMO / UNICEF / Regional
S. Andrew / CP Specialist / UNICEF / Regional
Mathieu Rouquette / SIRF Rep / Mercy Corps SIRF / Regional
Koh Miyaoi / Gender Advisor / UNDP SRF / Regional
Mazen Aboulhosn / Emergency Response Officer / IOM / Turkey
Roberta Montevechhi / Senior Programme Officer / UNHCR / Turkey
Jing Song / Reporting Officer / UNHCR / Turkey