An integrated monitoring and evaluation approach for the assessment of energy development projects

Abstract

To achieve benefits over time, energy development projects should take into account social aspects that influence their success. To evaluate this success, project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) should not only assess the achievement of expected objectives, but also monitor recipients' roles within the various steps of the project. With regard to this issue, in this paper, the authors describe a new M&E approach that improves on other traditional approaches. The new approach combines the logical framework approach (LFA) and the sustainable livelihoods framework. While the first represents a widely used tool for assessing the achievements of the project steps, the integration with the latter allows consideration of the importance of the recipients' roles within the project activities in order to induce targeted changes in livelihoods. From this viewpoint, the new integrated M&E approach helps to set up an effective set of indicators to perform a people-oriented evaluation of the project aside from a mere evaluation of the completion of the project phases. The proposed integrated M&E has been applied to an Energy Facility project funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the Italian nongovernmental organization (NGO) COOPI Cooperazione Internazionale in Malawi.