Workshop empowers government officials

A two-day programme entitled, “Train-the trainers course on Design and Implementation of a comprehensive performance monitoring and evaluation system in Lagos State,” was organised recently for Lagos State Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget (MEPB), in collaboration with Susman & Associates. The event took place at Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.

The Chairman, Susman & Associates Limited, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, described the workshop as one with a difference as it verified what the beneficiaries have gained from other similar workshops they have attended.

This is not the kind of general workshop that is organised for the fun of it, as we believe that the participants in this exercise are the core people, who will go into the different Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in Lagos State to impart the knowledge they acquired here.

In governance, we report a lot of meetings, activities, output among others, but at the end of the day, what is critical to the citizens we are serving is the services we deliver.

What is important to an average Nigerian is not how many power stations we build but how many uninterrupted hours of power supply we deliver, not our robust programmes on education but the quality of education we render and not how many hospitals we build but the excellent health services we carry out. So, the bottom-line is effective policy implementation,” he said.

Usman scored the Lagos State government high for being ahead of other States in Nigeria in terms of comprehensive performance, monitoring and evaluation system.

He said if the state continues in that direction, in the next 5 years, it would attract to itself the status of a role model. He declared: “At the end of this training programme, participants will be able to understand RBM M&E system, understand concepts, methods and tools for RBM&E system, understand Data and Data Collection tools for RBM&E system, identify key Stakeholders involved in their MDAs, select appropriate indicators for measuring levels of results and develop MDA specific log-frame matric; review framework and performance contracts.”

Director, Monitoring & Evaluation, Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, M& E Department, Dr. John Ekundayo, who represented the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Bayo Solade, said beneficiaries of the programme were from various planning units.

There are lots of things we still need to know to be of international standard. What is crucial is monitoring and evaluation because resources are scarce even at the federal level and this is the reason we have a lot of agitation. We need to attain best practices in our various endeavours, which is the reason for this workshop,” he said.