Earlier this month, the Vanuatu Skills Partnership (VSP) has facilitated a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) workshop with key provincial officers at the TAFEA Provincial Headquarter.
The 2-day workshop was held on September 2nd-3rd with aims to provide a qualitative methodology of collecting data for institutional planning and reporting.
The workshop has trained participants to better understand the processes of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning and the available tools needed to evaluate work progress within Area Councils, and provincial productive sectors.
Workshop facilitator, Jamine Makikon has stressed the importance of implementing effective Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning practices as the foundation to ensure essential goals can be efficiently met.
“Institutions must gain a mutual understanding on the applied methodologies and tools used in the planning and implementation of targeted activities required under the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning process, in order to achieve a goal,” Ms Makikon said.
TAFEA Provincial Data Officer, Bosco Sero believed “with this workshop, the TAFEA Provincial Area Administrators and Area Secretaries are far better equipped with the necessary tools and knowledge so they can monitor and evaluate their work output to meet the Provincial Governments and each Area Councils goals.
“Monitoring and Evaluation tools shared during the workshop will enable participants to effectively plan, monitor and evaluate the implementation of organizational plans at the Provincial and Area Council level to ensure transparency and efficiency in achieving targeted goals.
“After this workshop, I am able to use the Monitoring and Evaluation tools to provide reliable data to the TAFEA Provincial Administration for use during official Council seating’s as a basis for the council to make decisions based available reliable data.”
There is evidently a great interest for continued technical coaching and mentoring support to tailor MEL methodologies into practice, as relevant to the provincial sector partners and area administrators work through planning, monitoring and reporting.
The TAFEA Secretary General, Joe Iautim confirmed he is happy that the workshop “has supported provincial staff to learn the importance of relevant and reliable data which needs to be collected and used to analyze progress against Area and Provincial Council Business and Strategic Plans – so we can continuously improve and meet our development objectives.”
The VSP is a collaboration between the Ministry of Education and Training and the Government of Australia which supports local agents for a positive change in Vanuatu.