CASE STUDIES

Zambia, Monitoring and Evaluation and Management Information System for the Agribusiness Development Component of the Smallholder Enterprise and Marketing programme (SHEMP) April 2007.

EDG has been contracted to develop and establish a Monitoring and Evaluation and Management Information System for the Agribusiness Development Component of the Smallholder Enterprise and Marketing programme (SHEMP). SHEMP represent the Government of Zambia’s response to improving the marketing environment of smallholder farmers through strengthening linkages with the private sector farming and marketing enterprises.

One of the most interesting elements of this program is their innovative approach in providing up to date and correct price information to farmers for their commodities using Short Messaging System (SMS). Farmers in Zambia can now send a text message requesting the price of a commodity they are selling and get an immediate response indicating the best price in their area and the contact details of the traders buying the commodity at that price.

We designed an M&E system that provides SHEMP with regular information on usage, errors during use by farmer as well as percentage of request by type of information requested allowing SHEMP management to receive feedback early and thus addressing issues as they arise.

The graphs below present the type of information provided by our M&E system. Graph 1 represents number of hits and rate of error per week. Graph 2 provides information on type of information requested: 43 % of all requests were related to the price of maize (Zambian farmers staple food) and 20% to the contact details of traders in the area buying commodities at the disclosed price.

Analysis of Development Impact for Cambodia Australia Agricultural Extension Project (CAAEP), Cambodia
November 2006

EDG is regularly contracted by GRM International (GRM) to study the development impacts of projects the group has managed. This process improves understanding amongst GRM managers and also provides valuable training in M&E data analysis for less experienced staff.

EDG’s ADI team for the project included Ron Staples, Anneke Hofs and Julien de Meyer, while Benjamin Day represented GRM. Ron, Anneke and Ben visited Cambodia for 10 days where they made field visits and conducted interviews with the implementation team and its stakeholders.

The ADI analysed the journey CAAEP had undertaken to measure its development impact. Some of the immediate aspects the team addressed included the prime drivers for change within the project, how M&E had been used as a project management tool, the effects of extensive reporting and training.

It quickly became obvious that a number of the systems introduced under CAAEP II had had a positive impact on the agricultural sector. All had become embedded within the Department of Agricultural Extension, with some aspects adopted by the higher levels of the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fishery.

Some important M&E-related lessons were the need to:

• have clearly identified and agreed needs
• synchronise objectives and indicators
• gather relevant data for the M&E system
• create a M&E culture within the relevant institution.

Another important lesson that came out of the ADI for the project management team was to keep M&E simple! Complicated and academic monitoring arrangements resulted in an enormous amount of data being collected that was not useful.

Tracer study for the Crawford Fund, Vietnam
November 2005 to October 2006

The Crawford Fund provides short-term, hands-on training to people in developing countries engaged in agricultural research and training. For the past 10 years it has provided these programs in Vietnam, and to assess their effectiveness, asked EDG to conduct a tracer study between November 2005 and October 2006. The study surveyed 73 people who had taken part in one of the 21 activities provided by the Fund, and had a link to Vietnam.

The survey was conducted in two phases. The first was based on a general structured interview with quantitative and qualitative assessments, and the second was an in-country interview.

Overall, participants were highly positive about the impact of the training they received. When it came to assessing the personal impact of the various training programs i.e. competence, networking, and recognition, it was clear that short periods of personal training in Australia provided the greatest benefits, and training courses for a range of participants the least. However, there tended to be large differences in personal impact between training activities. Participants also identified benefits from training at an organisational level.

As expected, the study highlighted the fact personal impact was generally greatest when people were able to directly apply the new skills they had learned.

EDG recommended the development of a simple M&E framework to assess the Fund’s training activities on a regular basis. There needs to be a clear set of procedures for all training activities. This framework should provide enough relevant information for evaluation purposes and to make informed decisions for change.