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Friday, May 28, 2010

Monitoring & Auditing and Assessing & Evaluating

There is a phenomenal amount of funding, both Grants and Loans, provided by Corporations, Individuals, Governments and Funding Agencies, to Institutions, Not-for-Profits and Non-Governmental Organizations.
The Recipient Agencies use this funding for undertaking development activities across the Globe.
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There however remains a real need for the providers of these grants and loans, especially amongst the corporate and individuals, to have independent monitoring and evaluations . It is important to not only analyze, the appropriate utilization of these funds, but also the level of impact, whether they enable the end result to have been met, and if not, what needs to be done.
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There is a need for independent assessors, evaluators, technical auditors and monitors to oversee these functions on behalf of corporate and individuals who have fore staked their money in the hands of a few for the good of the people.
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While mostly the activities undertaken by such organizations are genuine and for the right reasons, there is only a percentage of the funding which finds its way towards meeting the desired goals. Vast pools of these resources get disbursed in meeting administrative and hiring costs. It is normally far beyond the amounts needed. Vast sums are further channelled to smaller organisations or individuals at the grass root level for undertaking these tasks thereby diluting the actions further.
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Activities such as these, with long term benefits to society need a more focused and sustainable approach.
Having engaged in these functions for the European Union for over 16 years I have repeatedly seen a need for revamping the delivery system for grants and loans for development. In fact neither grants nor loans are the real answer. In reality even the long term gains are in effect of a short term nature. Permanent sustainable development needs permanent solutions.
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There is a real need to change the basic system by which grants and loans are disbursed for development. Every grant or loan should be created by way of a corpus fund and invested to create a permanent revenue stream for sustainable development. The revenue generated should be utilized for creating parallel streams of, revenue and non-revenue generating, action plans for development. All of these should be constantly monitored, assessed, evaluated and audited for effective, streamlined and sustainable development.