Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PART ME) - Ghana

SEND Foundation Ghana is a non-governmental organization that operates in many of the rural districts in Ghana. SEND has developed an innovative programme known as the Grassroots Economic Literacy and Policy Advocacy Programme (GELAP). GELAP main implementation tool is a Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E). The PM&E is an advocacy tool that allows citizens especially the marginalized groups in society to participate in decision making at different levels of governance. In this project SEND will monitor the National Health Insurance Scheme in 21 districts were they are active. SEND will do this with a software tool called “Open Source Monitoring & Evaluation Tool (OSMT)” that will be developed for this project in order to meet the urgent need for collecting current and reliable information at the point of the health facility and other institutions. A portable, relatively inexpensive mobile device will be used with OSMT by the monitoring extension worker with immediate access to questionnaires and information and further to customized software to facilitate this monitoring process. After the data have been collected and analyzed, key issues will be identified and appropriate strategies adopted to improve on the implementation. These strategies will include education or sensitization of communities that have low rate of enrolment and to engage key stakeholders at either district or regional level where appropriate in the discussion of the monitoring findings for them to take concrete steps to address them. For this pilot phase, 21 districts will be selected from the 50 districts that SEND-Ghana is working with and this will be done in consultation with the Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation Networks in the various regions.

SEND Foundation Ghana is a non-governmental organization that operates in 52 districts in Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Greater Accra Regions out of the 170 districts in Ghana. Since 2002, SEND – Ghana has been one of the NGOs actively engaged in promoting good governance practices of accountability, transparency and citizen’s participation in the implementation of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). In line with this, it has developed an innovative programme known as the Grassroots Economic Literacy and Policy Advocacy Programme (GELAP). GELAP main implementation tool is the Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E). The PM&E is an advocacy tool that allows citizens especially the marginalized groups in society to participate in decision making at different levels of governance. The advocacy work of SEND – Ghana started when Ghana adopted the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiate in 2002. Though, there was no legal framework for civil society engagement with government actors at any level, SEND – Ghana decided to monitor the HIPC initiative by tracking flow of HIPC funds from the national to the district and allocation of funds to projects at the district level with the objective of enhancing the impact of HIPC funds on the people. With Ghana’s exit from HIPC, SEND – Ghana redirected its effort at a number of social interventions the government has put in place mainly in the health and education sectors to reduce poverty among Ghanaians. These interventions/programmes include the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was introduced in 2003 by the National Health Insurance Act, 2003 (Act 650) with the view of providing financial access (for the residents of Ghana, especially the poor and the vulnerable) to quality basic health care services. The objective of the NHIS is to ensure that, “within five years”; every resident of Ghana will belong to a health insurance scheme that adequately covers him or her against the need to pay out-of-pocket at the point of service for while reducing the barriers to access health care within the context of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). The NHIS is pro-poor, because the rich subsidizes the poor, the healthy subsidizes the sick and the economically active pays for children, the aged and the indigents.

Overall objective of the project are:

• To improve the implementation processes of the pro-poor policies in the health sector in Ghana through effective participatory monitoring and evaluation.
• To contribute to policy changes through expeditious monitoring and stakeholder engagement

Specific objectives

• To enhance data collection processes and increase the number of monitoring reports by SEND-Ghana
• To disseminate easily data and research findings to Focal NGOs and receive data and research findings from them
• To disseminate online (e.g e-bulletin, discuss groups and other social networks) policy advocacy issues to duty bearers, the public and receive feedbacks
• To improve on the content of SEND-GHANA’s official website by publishing  research findings and instituting a feedback page on the site which would allow to track views and opinions from the general public about the findings

Project objectives

• developing and deploying an “Open Source Monitoring Tool” called “OSMT”
• developing and using a monitoring Information Management System (MIS) and
• building the capacity of monitoring and evaluation teams of the FNGOs and SEND-Ghana within the first two years of project implementation.

Expected impact: an improved pro-poor policies in the health sector through the provision of participatory monitoring and evaluation data and research findings by December 2011

SEND–Ghana shall own, manage and implement the project in Ghana through its grassroots partners (Focal NGOs). As mentioned earlier SEND-Ghana has developed and is applying the PM&E approach under the GELAP. The PM&E network operates at three levels – district, regional and national. The district level PM&E forms the bedrock of SEND-Ghana’s advocacy programme as it is at the level that the direct monitoring and evaluation of pro-poor policies, programmes and projects is performed. The regional PM&E consists of representatives of the district PM&E committees dubbed District HIPC Monitoring Committees (DHMCs) in each region while the national PM&E is made up of representatives from the various regional PM&E networks.