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This Impact Report highlights how the Twende Mbele peer learning and sharing approach has been successful in trialing innovative ideas and approaches. Where;

• parliamentary support has been successful at regional level, with individual parliaments learning from each other’s best practices.
• partner countries continue to improve the gender responsiveness of their M&E systems with the support of various state and non-state actors.
• the work around integrating rapid evalutions has seen a number of policy changes, and growing demand for more timely evidence.

This guideline is intended to guide government agencies to strengthen collaboration with CSOs in the implementation of the NES.

In most cases government and CSOs have shared aims. They both aim to improve the living conditions of citizens and sustain development. When done well, collaboration between government and CSO can be beneficial for both parties, enabling them to fulfil their mandates/objectives. Yet, it is often difficult to achieve effective collaboration for several reasons. For example, government and CSO institutional contexts and cultures can vary significantly, their power and influence within a country are also not comparable. The relationship can also be further complicated where each hold negative sentiment about the other and by the fact that government has a regulatory/oversight function towards CSO operating in the country. This guideline recognises this complexity and aims to offer government officials building NES practical guidance to enhance collaboration with CSOs in building different aspects of their evaluation systems.

The purpose of this guideline is to serve as a tool for indicator development through an equity lens, that should be used alongside existing policies, plans and guidelines in the public sector. This guideline serves as part of a series of guidelines through the Twende Mbele partnership programme that seek to assist government decision makers to strengthen their M&E systems. This guideline is a foundational document that has been designed for Ghana’s national M&E system, but can be adapted to different country contexts and used as a platform for discussion and adoption in the national monitoring systems of other Twende Mbele’s country-level partners. Within the context of Ghana, this guideline is intended for indicator development and to assess the extent to which current monitoring frameworks are equitable, by:

• NDPC staff;

• Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Divisions (PPMEDs) staff and

• District Planning Coordinating Units (DPCUs) at the local government level.

Beyond the government of Ghana, this guideline can be used by development partners who are equityfocused, and by academia as a source of training for students.

This guideline note on establishing evaluation systems in parliaments draws on the technical understanding we have gained from studying monitoring and evaluation systems in parliaments and across governments, work led by Twende Mbele and facilitated through a partnership with the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results- Anglophone Africa (CLEAR-AA) in the Strengthening Legislative Oversight program and taking what we know about parliaments generally and specifically the African national and regional parliaments to present preliminary guidance on establishing evaluation systems in parliaments. The objectives of this guideline note are to;

(i) Provide an overview of the parliamentary institutional environment indicating the key institutions necessary in the parliamentary monitoring and evaluation system.

(ii) Highlight the technical and political considerations of establishing a Monitoring and Evaluation system in a political and bureaucratic environment.

(iii) Emphasize the importance of the unique institutional form of parliaments, primarily the work done through committees and its influence in the design of an M&E system.

Twende Mbele has developed a guideline on establishing a national monitoring and evaluation policy (NMEP) or evaluation policy (NEP), targeting the M&E champions in government, as well as their supporters in the wider M&E ecosystem.

The Purpose of the guideline is to provide practical guidance for governments in Africa on developing a national M&E or evaluation policy. This guideline is a good example co-creation amongst partners since it was developed by Ian Goldman, Aloyce Ratemo, Damase Sossou, Nox Chitepo, Takunda Chirau, Edoé Djimitri Agbodjan, David Makhado, Thokozile Molaiwa, Cara Waller, Tim Lubanga, Andrew Asibeye, representing Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda.