With its status as the main Institution regarding projects and program management, the African Water Association has been enjoying a capacity building session on the concept of monitoring and evaluation, an essential tool to be mastered in order to achieve its long and medium-term objectives.

Since Tuesday, August 9th, 2016, AfWA staff led by its Executive Director Sylvain USHER has been taking part in a training session on the mechanisms regarding the monitoring and evaluation about program and projects. The staff mainly interested by this training is the monitoring and evaluation officer, the program assistant, the Communication assistant, and the IT Officer.

The coordinators of AfWA programs that is underway (RASOP, AFRICAP, Young Professionals) also have been taking part in this 5 days training given by the Malian expert from the Centre International pour le Conseil et la Formation (International Centre for Consultancy and Training) located in Bamako: This training lies within the framework of AFRICAP program financed by the USAID WEST AFRICA and with the technical support of the USAID West Africa Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene Program (USAID WA-WASH).

According to Sadio Sissoko, Expert in local development and formative consultant, “in Africa as well as in many other regions of the world, 45 to 70% of projects or programs do not achieve their objectives or are not implemented”, and he added that this could be explained by the not-effectiveness of the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

He also asserted that in some cases, these tools of governance that donors or financing institutions give major importance to, are sometimes non-existent. The goal of this training is to improve monitoring and evaluation practical knowledge by appropriating all the tools and skills relating to this concept.

Monitoring and evaluation mechanism is a multi-recipient process, each recipient should implement it by its own so as to ensure its effectiveness, concluded the trainer before opening the works.