Kigali – From today 6th to 7th June 2018, the Local Administrative Entities Development Agency (LODA) is conducting a two day stakeholder workshop on monitoring & evaluation and citizen participation as part of its Monitoring and Evaluation Information System (MEIS). Under the theme “Towards Accountable Social and Economic Development at Local Level through Citizen Participation and Digitalisation”, the workshop is aimed at sharing information, ideas and debating on matters relating to MEIS as well as citizen participation in planning, budgeting and monitoring processes at local level. This workshop gathers around 150 participants representing public and private sector, civil society and Development Partners.
In more specific terms, the workshop is intended:
- to inform and raise awareness among stakeholders on data and functionalities available in MEIS and how they might be used for improving the performance of activities implemented by Local Government (LG);
- to discuss, reflect and exchange ideas on challenges and improvement areas in order to better serve stakeholders’ needs and strengthen citizen participation in local development;
- to explore opportunities for better harmonisation with other monitoring and evaluation systems and citizen participation tools for the purpose of avoiding duplication and maximising the efficiency of various efforts.
On the first day of the workshop, participants were taken through major components of MEIS, a web-based Monitoring and Evaluation Information System designed to cover all aspects of LODA’s daily monitoring and evaluation work targeting the two main fields of intervention supported by LODA, i.e. (i) infrastructure projects and (ii) Social Protection activities as outlined above. The system facilitates the management of the entire project cycle, from planning, procurement, monitoring, project management & financial compliance to operation & maintenance and allows both Districts and LODA to closely follow up during each project stage. Most importantly, the system allows citizen engagement through the Citizen Complaint Module (CCM), aimed at promoting participation and citizen’s involvement in the identification of challenges in the operation and functioning of local infrastructure projects.
While addressing the assembly, Mrs. Mandy Hupfer, Deputy Head of Cooperation at German Embassy in Rwanda, commended the GoR’s achievements in local economic development projects in decentralized administrative entities, and acknowledged LODA’s efforts in catering for citizen engagement through ICT tools such as MEIS.
In his opening remarks, the Minister of State in charge of Socio-Economic Development, Hon. Cyriaque HARERIMANA stated that ICT tools like MEIS shall help us access timely information vis-à-vis local development projects countrywide, track graduation from extreme poverty, and most importantly identify what are underlying challenges. Speaking to the press, Hon. Cyriaque hinted upon the harmonization of IT infrastructures and data sharing among different partners (Government agencies, NGOs, CSOs, private sector …). He added on the citizen participation part of this system is paramount in knowing and sharing success stories and obstacles encountered throughout the implementation of local development and social protection projects.
The MEIS has been established by LODA thanks to the KfW funding, and the latter continues to facilitate further fine-tune developments of the system. The workshop is expected to last two days and result into constructive inputs towards the betterment of MEIS, most importantly catering for citizen engagement in local economic development planning and monitoring, as well as social protection undertakings.
