నైరూప్య

Assessing the capacity of the monitoring and evaluation system at the department of health in Vihiga County, Kenya

Anyiendah Mary Susan, Mudogo Collins Mukanya, Opiyo Polycarp, Chengoli Wafula, Eric Ongute, Mwanje Justus, Wilber Otichillo

Background: Robust monitoring and evaluation systems can strengthen results-based management, establish a culture of results’ measurement, institutionalize evidence-based decision making and improve accountability of results at all levels of service delivery.

Objective: The objective of this paper is to share the findings of an internal assessment we conducted on the capacity of the twelve components of the monitoring and evaluation system at the department of health in Vihiga county.

Methods: After a three days’ training in a workshop on institutionalizing of monitoring and evaluation, officers at the department reviewed key documents and held discussions amongst themselves using a standardized tool developed in excel. Once consensus was reached, the scored were entered appropriately per question per domain. The tool automatically aggregated the scores under status, quality and autonomy in terms of financial and technical support.

Results: On status, costed annual work plan and supervision and auditing scored the highest (10.00/10.00). on quality routine monitoring scored the highest (9.38/10.00). Performance on technical autonomy was average with the best components scoring (5.00/10.00). Human capacity scored highest on financial autonomy (10.00/10.00).

Conclusion: Overall, majority of the components had relatively higher capacity on status and quality compared to the ratings on technical and financial autonomy. There is need for the county and partners to sustain gains made on the various components as well as strengthen those that are weak.