Monitoring & evaluating pro poor governance

Governance as the exercise of political authority for purposes of managing the affairs of a society has been around throughout the history of mankind. Its formalization in the era of the modern political state has sharply brought to focus the reciprocal relationship between the state and her citizens. Good governance today is not only about prudent state management, but also the sensitivity and appropriateness of institutional responses to the ever emerging practical and strategic societal needs. In sub Saharan Africa where a majority of the population are poor, marginalised and excluded from decision-making processes, pro poor governance would endeavour to prioritize sustained economic growth, promote public participation and inclusion and avail social and economic empowerment opportunities to citizens. Pro poor governments are also underpinned by an over arching responsibility for demand-driven socio-economic and political reforms that adequately respond to the changing times. In reality, these relationships are much more complex, the needs and rights overlap as much as they are interdependent.

Monitoring governance at whatever level is a function of a well-developed and participatory M&E framework and citizen capacity and conviction to participate. Targets of Pro poor governance initiatives, despite their challenges must be included with deliberate intention to build capacity that would sustain participation and open up more opportunities. Other key stakeholders must equally be harnessed to give contextual insights that should inform the larger indicators and picture about governance. Kenya like any other sub Saharan African state has come far in embracing pro poor reforms and opening the political space for public participation. Our political developments and progress are broadly anchored on three political regimes since independence.

Monitoring governance remains a daunting global challenge. But while few people dispute the notion that the quality of governance matters to development, measuring governance has largely been dominated by top-down, ‘blueprint’ methods of assessments. The World Bank now contend; that all governance indicators have weaknesses; that there are no easy solutions in measuring governance; and that the links from governance to development outcomes are complex hence policymakers should view the different types of indicators as complementary rather than competing.

So, what does governance really mean? When, why and how does governance make a difference to the way a country develops? According to an Overseas Development Institute (ODI) research, governance is too important an issue to be left only to international donor agencies to define and determine. Governance in any case is nothing more than an over-arching programming concept; a synonym for making the political machinery work better. Whether this is achieved or not is better demostrated by the positive changes in the life of the ordinary poor people. This domestic constituency must therefore be brought in to provide a complementary and contrasting perspective.

1. Enactment of Freedom of Information Law: The existing official secrets act is a big hindrance to information gathering, which forms the bane of monitoring and evaluation. Sensitive information can easily be concealed under the guise of the act.
2. Building the capacity of both the demand and supply side is necessary to forging a common understanding of pro poor governance as well as service delivery. Both the soft (knowledge, bureaucracy) and the physical or hard infrastructural capacity remain wanting in supporting an inclusive M&E work. Civic Society led civic education has done a lot among the service users, but the civil service remain weak
3. Develop a multi stakeholder M & E framework capable of accommodating state, corporate and CSO actors. Current framework needs to be expanded to be more participatory to stakeholders as opposed to merely consultative. Moreover, there is need to pursue a more progressive trend towards participatory processes of pro poor M & E, while emphasizing the need to consider and include unique local contexts.
4. Emphasis should be made on greater coordination, harmonization and consolidation of the various M&E agencies and other players. Even better, a system of checks and balances should be struck between the specialised agencies to ensure peer monitoring. The monitors should be monitored too.