This development led the state governor, Senator Abiola Ajiombi to mandate the state Planning Commission to organise a training workshop for the state civil servants on institutionalization of monitoring and evaluation process with an ultimate goal of integrating performance management in the civil service administration.
Last week Wednesday Special Adviser to the state governor on Economic, Planning and Budget, Dr Isiaka Kolawole with the Permanent Secretary State Planning Commission, Mrs Olufunke Adebiyi convoked directors, Planning, Research and statistics drawn from all the Ministries, Departments and agencies in the state at the Plaza De Aruna, Oyo town, for three days brainstorming exercise on the development of a well-structured Monitoring and Evaluation System in the state with the support of the United Nations Children Education Fund(UNICEF), Akure Field Office, who provided the resource person for the workshop.
The Special Adviser, Dr Kolawole, who led the participants disclosed that the workshop was part of governor Ajimobi,’s dream for Oyo State in his transformation agenda to ensure efficient service delivery for Sustainable Development Goal assurance in the state.
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According to him, developmental plan should premise on informed decision making, accountability, inclusive participation and efficient resource utilisation, adding that well-coordinated monitoring and evaluation framework can only determine the impact of such plan.
He noted that there had been obvious gaps in terms of capacity institutional arrangements for tracking government programmes and projects in the various sectors in the state.
“Since the inception of the present administration in the state, training and re-training of the workforce has been given priority attention. This desire is premised on the need to evolve a service that will successfully drive the transformation agenda of the administration to higher heights. It was on this note that this workshop was specially designed to develop skilled manpower that would track programmes/ projects performance and provide pointers to how to do things better on the platform of quality monitoring and evaluation framework,” Dr Kolawole said, stressing that development would guide short and long term decision making, improved performance and at the same time provide evidence based information that is credible, reliable and useful for assessment of impact.
Speaking in the same vein, the Permanent Secretary, Oyo State Planning Commission, Mrs Olufunke Adebiyi declared that the workshop was tailored towards intimating the civil servants with the developed monitoring and evaluation policy and its execution process in the state.
According to her, the populace will, henceforth, begin to enjoy the dividends of democracy through the reviewed monitoring, reporting and evaluation policy designed to execute state government projects and programmes to achieve the masses expected sustainable Development goals in our state.
She then sought for the cooperation and collaboration of the workshop participants and other stakeholders in the civil service to ensure the government’s equity service delivery through active inter-ministerial engagements and synergy for better performance management in the state.
The UNICEF representative at the workshop, Dr Adeniyi Olaleye commended the state Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi for the approval of the workshop, describing it as a right step in the right direction
According to him, no government or any organization can achieve much results in its projects or programmes investments undertaking without the employment of monitoring and evaluation system method.
He noted that the concept of monitoring, reporting and evaluation was relatively new, especially in public administration in Nigeria, that the emphasis had been on budget and the numbers of projects that they want to execute, but in the area of tracking the difference and changes in the life of people is still very new.
“In this regard, we need to change the orientation of civil servants, and build best practice culture of planning, monitoring and reporting based on performance in them “This is what the 3- day long workshop stood for; to develop monitoring, and evaluation system in a way that the state government would be able to project what is doing, able to show results and be able to follow the plan it has.
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