The DFID Nepal Country Assistance Plan (CAP), published in February 2004, aims to reduce poverty and social exclusion and help establish the basis for lasting peace. To this end, CAP commits DFID Nepal to developing improved, locally accountable and transparent systems for monitoring progress. This DFID paper describes the main elements of the CAP Monitoring Framework (CAPMF), setting out how DFID Nepal (DFIDN) proposes to monitor the operating environment for development activities and measure progress towards outputs.
The new CAP Monitoring Framework (CAPMF) is designed to supplement the Nepalese government’s Poverty Monitoring and Analysis System (PMAS) launched in May 2004. PMAS – not yet fully operational – will use both input/output and outcome/well-being indicators, gathering data from management information systems in sector ministries, public expenditure tracking, and periodic surveys.
The MF will form a comprehensive picture of programme performance and viability of CAP objectives, addressing the specific monitoring needs for a country in conflict. Complementing conventional project cycle monitoring, CAPMF will strengthen the quality of decision-making at programme and strategic level, providing rigorous evidence of impact on poverty and social exclusion. The MF is also designed to rebalance DFIDN’s effort between programme design/monitoring and between activity/outcome reporting.
CAPMF findings will be reviewed both throughout each year, and annually. An annual report will be disseminated widely amongst Nepal’s development community. Strategic direction and priorities for the following year will be agreed and integrated into the programme. The MF comprises three main components:
- Conflict Impact Monitoring: A programme-based monitoring system to track deliverability at an activity level. Quarterly surveys will be analysed for project and staff risk, identifying overall trends across DFIDN’s portfolio.
- Livelihoods and Social Inclusion (LSI) Monitoring: DIFDN will produce bi-annual reports analysing the impact of programmes on poor and excluded groups, assessing changes in assets and access to services; voice, influence and claiming rights; the ‘rules of the game’ (based on socially defined identity) in legal, policy and institutional processes. The bi-annual data will influence future strategic priorities.
- Context Monitoring: Assessing changes in the broader operating environment for development in Nepal, incorporating the resources above with Embassy reports, budgetary trends, fiduciary risk and other sources.
There is a need for continuing and robust analysis of the Nepal context, both in relation to the conflict and also in relation to the wider politics of a state with weak institutions and currently without democratic government. Context analysis is not to become the basis for political conditionality, but to assist DFIDN in adapting aid instruments appropriately in order to achieve greatest impact. A small group has been established to monitor the following specific areas for contextual analysis:
- Maoist tolerance of development activities: monitoring the possibility of increased attempts to control or extort resources from the programme.
- People movement: monitoring the incidence of forced relocation, possible indications of worsening in the conflict signalled by increased migration.
- Additionality and ability to monitor: monitoring donor support, and the resources allocated by government to support the Poverty Reduction Strategy, plus independent monitoring of programme performance on behalf of donors.
- Rule of Law: monitoring the current culture of impunity in relation to human rights abuse.
- Ability to Deliver: monitoring the impact of conflict on community access and security of staff, and how this affects the viability of ongoing programmes.
- Fiduciary risk: monitoring the public sector and tracking progress in anti-corruption and reducing fiduciary risk overall.
