Colombia’s national system for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is one of the strongest in Latin America. This assessment by the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) identifies its strengths and weaknesses. A number of options are identified for further strengthening the system so that it becomes fully institutionalised.
Colombia has achieved considerable success in the creation and strengthening of its monitoring and evaluation system, SINERGIA (National System for Evaluation of Public Sector Performance). The President’s role as a key champion and user of the system is unprecedented within the region. The ambitious agenda of impact evaluations is also impressive. Nevertheless, for SINERGIA to become fully institutionalised, it must provide good-quality information which is used intensively in supporting sound governance. Furthermore, it must be fully sustainable and able to survive changes in government.
SINERGIA has been particularly successful in supporting the accountability of the President to civil society and parliament. Nevertheless, a number of challenges remain. These include:
- the lack of a single, clear conceptual framework. Whilst the government has trialed a number of initiatives to better understand what works in the Colombian context, there are few strong links between the various initiatives
- a need to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the organisations that support SINGERGIA
- the absence of clear links between planning, budgeting and evaluation. There is little evidence that M&E information has been used to support resource allocation and decision-making in the national budget
- problems with the availability and frequency of data, and problems with data quality controls – including a lack of harmonisation of data definitions and an absence of formal data audits.
In order to strengthen SINERGIA, there should be an increase in the supply of, and demand for, M&E information. Furthermore, the role and responsibilities of supporting organisations need to be clarified. These objectives can be achieved by:
- improving the quality and credibility of monitoring information, reducing the costs of data supply and increasing the quality of evaluations
- promoting greater awareness of, and confidence in, the monitoring information and evaluation findings that the system produces
- ensuring that key ministers and their ministries play a leading role in championing the usefulness of M&E. This should include ensuring that M&E information is used to support budget and national planning decision-making and social accountability
- giving significant oversight of SINERGIA to The National Council for Economic and Social Policy (CONPES) and the Intersectoral Committee for Evaluation and Management for Results.
