How monitoring and evaluation influence future interventions

INTPA is a learning-based organisation. As such, it aims at systematically translating accumulated knowledge and expertise into operational reality. This constitutes a continuous exercise of applied knowledge, with the ultimate objective of bettering link INTPA processes with the delivery of specific products and the achievement of intended results.

INTPA staff relies to a great extent on lessons learned and findings from past experience to prepare new interventions and inform future decision-making: operational managers and decision-makers are interested in clear and operational recommendations credibly grounded on evidence. From this perspective, monitoring and evaluating (and auditing to a certain extent) are the institutionally established mechanisms by which to learn from experience, to better understand what works and what does not, and to accumulate knowledge for application in future actions.

Learning (along with accountability, management and communication) is one of the purposes for monitoring, auditing and evaluating. For optimal results, learning from evaluations should be combined with learning from monitoring (internal, external/ROM, results collection) and from audits (intervention as well as the more strategic audits by the Internal Audit Service and the Court of Auditors). Monitoring, evaluation and auditing are supposed to provide an in-depth understanding of the performance of an intervention or of strategic issues, thus forming a solid base for deriving lessons for future interventions or programming decisions.

Monitoring, ex ante and mid-term evaluations, as well as audits have an immediate impact on a given intervention, although lessons learned will certainly contribute to and shape future interventions — assuming the translation of knowledge into operational reality. In turn, the conclusions and recommendations of final and ex post evaluations feed directly into new actions in all phases of the intervention cycle, while the findings of strategic evaluations inform aid programming processes.