Course:FRE540
| International Resource Economics and Development | |
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| FRE 540 | |
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Introduction
This course covers project monitoring and evaluation for timely responses (METR) that will increase students':
- Practical understanding of one of the major reasons for failures of assistance interventions (aid projects and programs), namely inadequate impact evaluation; and
- How to overcome these failures.
Students are provided with an analytical tool that will increase their value as employment candidates for:
- National and international donor agencies;
- Consultancy companies; and
- Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the development field.
Capacity is built for the design and implementation of ex post project and program evaluation (by effectively measuring the right things in the right way at the right time, hence METR), thereby:
- Increasing the likelihood of lasting beneficial changes in development project outcomes;
- Informing processes for better design of future projects; and
- Offering informed recommendations for policy change to provide better enabling conditions for lasting growth and development.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, with a special focus on assistance interventions through (aid) development projects and programs for natural resource management and health & nutrition projects, students will be able to conduct:
- External Project Evaluation: Independently and credibly evaluate development projects' and programs' relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and impacts:
- Within and beyond the project's location, and
- Identifying indications of development continuity beyond the lifetime of assistance interventions.
- Shared Learning Processes: Design shared learning processes to encourage:
- Beneficial changes in behaviour of the project implementers;
- Improve the design of future projects; and
- Promote policy reform that creates more enabling conditions for growth and development.
Specific Topics Covered to Build METR Capacity
- Understanding the Nature of Successes and Failures of Conventional Project Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), primarily:
- Over-reliance on internal or semi-independent evaluation of project inputs and outputs
- Entrenched interests that are content with inadequate M&E, rather than a commitment to outcome/impact-based and more independent M&E
- potential for strengthening information feedback connections between:
- sources of project funds (e.g., taxpayers, foundations, charities etc.) and
- intended beneficiaries of the projects.
- Team Building among METR Specialists:
- Terms of Reference (ToR) enhanced by METR
- Following the Trajectory of Trust (see below)
- METR Engagement with Project:
- Clarification of Purpose (derived from ToR)
- Appreciative Inquiry about the Project and METR itself by asking, "what was your best moment on the project?"
- Obtaining Data and Information in the Time Available:
- Types of data and information sources; handling excess/insufficiency
- Field visits and interviews
- Evaluation of the Role of a Broad Portfolio of Development Capital/Assets affected by the Project and the Institutions that Influence them:
- Financial, physical (human-made), natural (sources and sinks), knowledge (codified and informal/traditional), human and social capital/assets and:
- the institutions that formally and informally manage these assets, and
- de facto and de jure rights, roles, responsibilities, and relationships (R4) or key stakeholders.
- To achieve the 3 E's of
- Economic efficiency,
- Environmental management, and
- Equity
- Assessment of the degree to which projects face any of the disabling 3 U's of
- Uncertainty of Tenure,
- Undervaluation of Natural Resources, and
- Under-regulated Negative Externalities
- Financial, physical (human-made), natural (sources and sinks), knowledge (codified and informal/traditional), human and social capital/assets and:
- Measuring the Application of Key Good Governance Principles by project implementers, notably:
- Transparency, participation/inclusivity, accountability, and timely responsiveness.
- Assessment of Mutual Stakeholder Understanding among project donors and implementers as well as partners/beneficiaries to harness social capital through the "Trajectory of Trust" of ToT before starting to deliver project benefits:
- Beginning with mutual understanding (appreciation of stakeholder expectations and concerns - hopes and fears - about the project)
- In turn, fostering mutual respect
- Laying the foundation for mutual trust.
- Appraisal of Project Logical Frameworks (logframes) for project design, (including elements such as overall purpose, specific objectives, activities (outputs and inputs), development assumptions and risks, and objectively verifiable indicators for measurements that together effectively "track success and capture failure". In the absence of logframes, construction of rapid logframes for the project, with recommended improvements), that should be:
- Underpinning by a schematic PROBLEM TREE: symptoms - core problem - proximate and root causes
- For participative modification
- Application of Core Criteria of Project Evaluation:
- Conceptual integrity or core logic of the project approach
- Relevance of specific project objectives/projected end results to purpose
- Quality of design of implementation
- Adequacy of implementation sequencing (starting with trust-building; see 6 above)
- Efficiency of delivery of project outputs in terms of human, financial, and time resources
- Effectiveness of outputs, comparing with ex ante targets and cost-benefit analysis
- Match of outputs-to-purpose
- Specific outcomes on targeted beneficiaries/partners and non-targeted neighbours
- Specific impacts after the end of the project on project beneficiaries and their neighbours, clearly answering the question, "what will happen on the first day after the last day of the project?"
- Validity of fundamental assumptions and risks
- Appropriateness of Objectively Verifiable Indicators, OVI, (direct and proxies)
- Assuring Dynamic Internal Lessons-Learned Processes about fundamental assumptions, "what we thought we knew but experience taught us otherwise:"
- Distinguishing between lessons identified, learned/acted on, and remembered
- The importance of initiating this process earlier than usual in the project implementation process
- Promoting Shared Learning of Project Outcomes (successes and failures) among relevant institutions, to:
- Encourage better future project design, and
- Inform those who exert influence on
- Policy- and decision-makers to create enabling conditions for more sustainable development, as well as
- Vested interests that oppose policy reform for sustainable development.
- Presentation of Findings and Recommendations Style:
- Analytical
- Accessible
- Readily Replicable
Course Resources
- Contextual Readings
- "Best Practices" for M&E from EuropAID, World Bank, USAID, FAO, IFAD, EU, CIDA, DfID, GIZ, and others
- Bullet-point reporting
- M&E Case Study
- Logical Framework Development
- Development Project Sites Reports
- METR Criteria and Indicators
Experiential and Useful Learning Approach
This METR course will develop employment skills for work with:
- Development/Donor agencies
- Consultancy companies
- Development NGOs
- Development projects
- Research institutions (e.g., UBC)
Through the establishment of METR teams (economists, technologists, and institutional/governance specialists) that work well together, for
- First, assessment of strengths and weaknesses of actual project monitoring and evaluation reports to estimate to what extent they are METR compliant
- Second, design of METR for actual development projects (priority for confidential evaluation of UBC-managed international projects).
Student Evaluation
| Activity | Percent of Grade |
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| Student Participation | 5% |
Two Term Papers (includes confidential multiplier self and team member assessments)
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| Exam (multiple choice & analytical questions) | 35% |
| Total: | 100% |
Additional notes: Any sufficiently insightful term papers could be sent to development agencies or projects with the approval of course instructor and students involved.