Monitoring, evaluation and oversight of development cooperation

How development cooperation is implemented is crucial for its effectiveness and for the sustainability of the results.

Finland collaborates with various actors to achieve its development policy goals. Its partners include states, organisations and businesses. Each form of cooperation has its own unique characteristics and strengths, but all forms of cooperation share the aim of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and producing verifiable development impacts.

The purpose of the monitoring, evaluation and oversight of development cooperation is to ensure proper use of funds and to produce information on what factors support the achievement of goals and assess how well the expected results have been reached.

Quality assurance is supported by ten quality criteria. They are connected to the internationally agreed development effectiveness principles, which Finland is committed to implement. The principles are country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships and transparency and mutual accountability.

Implementation of development cooperation

The implementation of development cooperation can be divided into five interlinked phases.

1. The strategic planning phase outlines the kind of positive changes that development cooperation aims at and the means to achieve these changes. The means may include a development policy investment strategy, country specific strategies, influencing goals for individual UN organisations, and decisions on calls for government grant applications intended for civil society organisations.
2. The economic, social, cultural, technical, institutional and ecological factors that affect the intended change are analysed as part of the preparation of programmes and projects. At the same time, the partner’s ability to implement the planned activities is assessed,  along with the impacts of these activities on  the environment and different groups of people. The preparation phase also involves defining in more detail the expected results and performance indicators for the activities and analysing factors that affect the  sustainability of the project.
3. The funding proposal must pass the Ministry’s internal quality assurance procedure before funding and government grant decisions are made. The procedure includes an assessment of how the activities to be funded contribute to the expected results set for development policy and development cooperation. The focus is on assessing factors that affect effectiveness and risk management. The responsibilities and obligations related to monitoring and oversight are recorded in the terms of agreements and decisions.
4. During the implementation phase, the use of funds, progress of programmes and the results of the activities are monitored through various reports. Officials at the Ministry and at the Embassies abroad follow the progress, the use of funds, the risks and the reliability of reporting also through regular contact, participation in the work of  executive boards and steering groups, and field visits. The Ministry also commissions external audits, performance audits, and evaluations.
5. Once the funding period has ended, the Ministry will assess and analyse which factors have supported or hindered the achievement of results. The continuous assessment of activities is also supported by development evaluation, which helps to understand what works or doesn’t work in development policy and development cooperation, and why. This is the optimum way of learning from best practices and challenges and guiding activities towards becoming more effective.