Assignment

On
Monitoring and Evaluation, Social Audit
SUBMITTED BY:
RAFIA NIKHAT
AFREEN KHURSHID
SABIH HAIDER

SUBMITTED TO:
DR. SEEMA NAAZ

CENTRE FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT

AND RESEARCH
JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA
NEW DELHI
INTERNAL ASSESSMENT

1. MONITORING AND EVALUATION, SOCIAL AUDIT

1.1 What Is Monitoring And Evaluation (M&E)?

Monitoring is the systematic and routine collection of information from projects and programmes for
four main purposes:

 To learn from experiences to improve practices and activities in the future;

 To have internal and external accountability of the resources used and the results obtained;
 To take informed decisions on the future of the initiative;
 To promote empowerment of beneficiaries of the initiative.
 Monitoring is a periodically recurring task already beginning in the planning stage of a project or
programme.
 Monitoring allows results, processes and experiences to be documented and used as a basis to steer
decision-making and learning processes.
 Monitoring is checking progress against plans.
 The data acquired through monitoring is used for evaluation.

Evaluation is assessing, as systematically and objectively as possible, a completed project or programme

(or a phase of an ongoing project or programme that has been completed). Evaluations appraise data and
information that inform strategic decisions, thus improving the project or programme in the future.
Evaluations should help to draw conclusions about five main aspects of the intervention:
 Relevance
 Effectiveness
 Efficiency
 Impact
 Sustainability
Information gathered in relation to these aspects during the monitoring process provides the basis for the
evaluative analysis.

1.2 MONITORING & EVALUATION

M&E is an embedded concept and constitutive part of every project or programme design (“must be”).
M&E is not an imposed control instrument by the donor or an optional accessory (“nice to have”) of any
project or programme. M&E is ideally understood as dialogue on development and its progress between
all stakeholders.
In general, monitoring is integral to evaluation. During an evaluation, information from previous
monitoring processes is used to understand the ways in which the project or programme developed and
stimulated change. Monitoring focuses on the measurement of the following aspects of an intervention:
 On quantity and quality of the implemented activities (outputs: What do we do? How do we manage
our activities?)
 On processes inherent to a project or programme (outcomes: What were the effects /changes that
occurred as a result of your intervention?)
 On processes external to an intervention (impact: Which broader, long-term effects were triggered by
the implemented activities in combination with other environmental factors?)
 The evaluation process is an analysis or interpretation of the collected data which delves deeper into
the relationships between the results of the project/programme, the effects produced by the
project/programme and the overall impact of the project/programme.
1.3 Why is monitoring and evaluation (M&E) important?

Monitoring and evaluation is important because:

 it provides the only consolidated source of information showcasing project progress;
 it allows actors to learn from each other’s experiences, building on expertise and knowledge;
 it often generates (written) reports that contribute to transparency and accountability, and allows
for lessons to be shared more easily;
 it reveals mistakes and offers paths for learning and improvements;
 it provides a basis for questioning and testing assumptions;
 it provides a means for agencies seeking to learn from their experiences and to incorporate them
into policy and practice;
 it provides a way to assess the crucial link between implementers and beneficiaries on the ground
and decision-makers;
 it adds to the retention and development of institutional memory;
 It provides a more robust basis for raising funds and influencing policy.

1.4 Monitoring and evaluation – the challenge in a nutshell

Monitoring and evaluation activities deliver data about the progress of the Sustainable Urban
Mobility Plan (SUMP) development process and the impact of policy measures. They are carried out
before, during and after implementation of transport measures. Providing regular information to
decision makers, potential funding bodies and local stakeholders can help to demonstrate that a
SUMP has delivered, or will deliver benefits to the community, provides value for money, is worth
continuing or requires modifications to be successful. Systematic monitoring and evaluation increases
the efficiency of the planning process and implementation of measures, helps to optimize the use of
resources and provides empirical evidence for future planning and appraisal of transport measures.

Typical challenges for the effective use of monitoring and evaluation are
• Lack of experience;
• Limited financial and staff resources;
• Gaps in technical knowledge with regard to defining performance indicators, the retrieval,
collection, preparation and interpretation of data; and
• Inefficient monitoring and evaluation practices.
To tackle these issues, key recommendations regarding procedures, context, indicator selection,
communication and process evaluation can be derived from existing experiences.

Key tasks in SUMP development:

 Institutional cooperation.
 Participation.
 Measure selection.
 Monitoring & evaluation.

1.5 Facts about Monitoring and Evaluation:

A surge in public expenditure driven by economic growth has occurred in India,1 which in turn has
resulted in a growing demand for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and performance management
from government, program implementers, international donor organizations, and civil society at large.
There is evidence that key macroeconomic policy makers (ministries of finance and planning) are
also concerned about quality in public spending and better outcomes from public investments. In the
light of these imperatives, the Indian government has taken initiatives to improve the monitoring and
evaluation environment.
 The government is moving toward a countrywide M&E system to establish more firmly an
institutionalized national setting for continuous results-based M&E activities tied to planning, budget
decision making, and accountability. The Ministry of Finance has instituted outcome budgeting, and
the Planning Commission has created an Independent Evaluation Office, which will subsume the
Commission’s preexisting Program Evaluation Organization. Similarly, the Cabinet Secretariat
(which services the Cabinet, that is, the Council of Ministers) has created the Performance
Management and Evaluation System.

As the Finance Minister noted in 2005:

“Robust economic growth has thrown up many new challenges, among them the need to put in place
effective monitoring, evaluation and accounting systems. I think we do not pay enough attention to
outcomes as we do to outlays; or to physical targets as we do to financial targets; or to quality as we
do to quantity Government intends to strengthen evaluation.
This needs to be supplemented by independent evaluations conducted by research institutions
(Budget Speech, February 29, 2005)”.

Building a government wide M&E system in a large, complex, and diverse country like India is not
easy. The difficulties of building such a system can be gauged if one understands the complexity of
India’s governance structure. India is a federal, multiparty democracy, composed of 28 states, 5 union
territories, and a total of 641 districts, into which the states are divided. The union and state
governments have a Westminster style parliamentary system. The Constitution of 1950 created a
federal, secular republic in a country which had for the preceding 90 years been governed by the
British Crown and for a century prior to 1857 (when the Crown took over) by the East India
Company and its local feudal collaborators.

The following are examples of follow-up actions based on PEO evaluation findings taken at the
highest decision-making level:
 The Mahila Samriddhi Yojana, a program for empowerment of poor rural women, was
thoroughly restructured and redesigned following PEO’s evaluation report (1996).
 The Non-Formal Education program of the Ministry of Human Resource Development was
revamped, with a new strategy. In restructuring the program, the PEO’s findings of the evaluation
of the program (1998) were considered.
 Based on the findings of PEO’s evaluation (2001) of the National Project on Bio-gas
Development, the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources modified the guidelines for
implementation of the scheme and the revised guidelines were issued in 2002–03.
 The findings of the evaluation on the functioning of community/primary health centers were
extensively used in the midterm appraisal of the ninth plan (1997–2002), formulation of the tenth
five-year Plan (2002–07), and formulation the National Health Policy (NHP 2002).

2. SOCIAL AUDIT

Meaning and Definition Of Social Audit

Different people have interpreted the expression social audit differently. To some authors, it means
the public disclosure of a company’s social performance; to others it means internal evaluation of a
company’s social responsibility performance. Some authors think that social audit is a comprehensive
evaluation of the way a company discharges all its responsibilities to its shareholders, customers,
employees, and to the wider community. Thus, there is a total disagreement among the scholars as to
the exact meaning, and the components of this novel concept. A social audit is a way of measuring,
understanding, reporting and ultimately improving an organization’s social and ethical performance.
A social audit helps to narrow gaps between vision/goal and reality, between efficiency and
effectiveness. It is a technique to understand, measure, verify, report on and to improve the social
performance of the organization. Social auditing creates an impact upon governance. It values the
voice of stakeholders, including marginalized/poor groups whose voices are rarely heard. Social
auditing is taken up for the purpose of enhancing local governance, particularly for strengthening
accountability and transparency in local bodies. The key difference between development and social
audit is that a social audit focuses on the neglected issue of social impacts, while a development audit
has a broader focus including environment and economic issues, such as the efficiency of a project or
programme. Social audits refer to a legally mandated process where potential and existing
beneficiaries evaluate the implementation of a programme by comparing official records with ground
realities.

Definition of Social Audit

“The social audit is an idea whose time has come, but which is not ready to be taken off the drawing
board and put to work”. – Melvin Aushen.
“A commitment to systematic assessment of and reporting on some meaningful, definable domain of
a company’s activities that have a social impact”. - Boweni

Background

• Social auditing is a process that enables an organisation to assess and demonstrate its social,
economic, and environmental benefits and limitations.
• It is a way of measuring the extent to which an organisation lives up to the shared values and
objectives it has committed itself to.
• Social auditing information is collected through research methods that include social book-
keeping, surveys and case studies.
• The objectives of the organisation are the starting point from which indicators of impact are
determined, stakeholders identified and research tools designed in detail.
• In the 70s, when. it first appeared, social audit was a response to the budding consumer
movements that rode on the issues of unsafe products and to the environmentalists’ movements that
protested on the wanton dumping of pollutants to the environment.
• In the last decade when it resurfaced from the lull in the 80’s social audit was driven, and literally
forced upon, by the ‘green business’ and ‘ethical investments’ communities that came to prominence
through highly publicized boycotts of firms.
• Social audit in origin, it can be said then, has roots in the dire need to make business
organizations more accountable to people and communities.
• Some business organizations’ decisions and actions have far-reaching implications on, and
consequences to, communities and lives of peoples have to be recognized, and that whatever their
impact - either beneficial or non-beneficial - these organizations have to account for them on the
ground of social responsibility.
• Social Audit is thus, a method of ensuring accountability of any authority, governmental or
otherwise, of its actions and inactions, what it chose to do, the manner in which it is being done and
the analysis of what is done.

CONCEPT OF SOCIAL AUDIT

• Emerged in the 1940’s when academic Theodore Kreps called on companies to acknowledge
their responsibilities to citizens
• 1960-70’s, a fresh wave of interest in Social and Ethical Accounting, Auditing and Reporting
(SEAAR). Concept of ‘stakeholders’ emerged.
• 1980s, the social audit concept travelled from the private to the public sector in response to new
emerging democratic governance trends.
• Lately, social media (facebook, twitter,) are playing an important role to channel citizen’s
initiatives to uncover corrupt practices and mismanagement, as well as to hold governments
accountable.
• Social audit has become a key component of any democratic governance and anti-corruption
strategy.

Objectives of social audit

1. Assessing the physical and financial gaps between needs and resources available for local
development.
2. Creating awareness among beneficiaries and providers of local social and productive services.
3. Increasing efficacy and effectiveness of local development programmes.
4. Scrutiny of various policy decisions, keeping in view stakeholder interests and priorities,
particularly of rural poor.
5. Estimation of the opportunity cost for stakeholders of not getting timely access to public services.
6. Accurate identification of requirements.
7. Prioritization of developmental activities as per requirements.
8. Proper utilization of funds.
9. Conformity of the developmental activity with the stated goal.

Advantages of social audit

(a) Trains the community on participatory local planning.
(b) Encourages local democracy.
(c) Encourages community participation.
(d) Benefits disadvantaged groups.
(e) Promotes collective decision making and sharing responsibilities.
(f) Develops human resources and social capital

Principle of Social Audit

A good social audit carries the following characteristics:
• Improved social performance: This is the overarching principle, and this refers to the continuous
improvement in performance by the organization relative to the chosen social objectives as the result
of social audit.
• Multi-perspective: It is important for all groups affected or who affect the organization to be
included in the process.
• Comparative: The process should allow for comparison with other organizations, over time and
between stakeholder groups.
• Comprehensive: The process should be designed to collect all relevant materials and areas of
concern should not be left out simply because the organization would not like the result.
• Regular: To facilitate comparability and to demonstrate a commitment to the process, it should be
regular, with a frequency of once every two years.
• Verified: Verification by independent auditors gives the process credibility.
• Published: The result (or a synopsis) of the audit should be published so that the stakeholders can
see the results and to encourage openness.
• Improvement: It is important to receive feedback about the process itself and the report, and to
improve the system over time.
• Embeddedness: The social audit process should be integrated with other business information
gathering system.

Relevance of Social Audit

At its simplest, Accountability refers to a process by which individuals or organisations are
answerable for their actions and consequences that follow from them. What remains unclear,
however, is the issue of who is entitled to hold these individuals or organizations to account and
mechanism that should be used in order to do so.
The Traditional approach to Accountability refers to the conventional method of formal authority
over individual/organization and right to hold them to account. But this approach to accountability
often fails to empower those who are most affected by an organization’s decisions. Meanwhile, the
Stakeholder Approach to Accountability goes beyond the traditional approach and domain of formal
authority.
This approach is more participative in nature and democratic in sprit.