Evaluation 2030; Baselining the decade

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is described as a process that assists project managers in improving performance and achieving results. The goal of M&E is to improve current and future management of outputs, outcomes and impact. In order to properly evaluate Nigeria’s performance on the SDGs, a substantial amount of data will be required. In Nigeria today, Data is unavailable and unreliable for a number of reasons. According to a report on Quartz Africa 2019, The state of Nigeria’s lack of accurate data is such that even the president does not know the country’s population size. This is because Nigeria lacks the foundation for Data collection.
This event will focus on capacity building sessions that will address these key issues
1. Data collection and availability in Nigeria
2. Improving M&E methods in Nigeria
3. Improving measuring and reporting methods in Nigeria

Proposal
The event ‘Baselining the century’ aims to convene stakeholders across various sectors contributing to the SDG’s with the aim of Increasing evaluators capacity to measure results, generate and use credible and quality evidence. As mentioned earlier, Nigeria faces a serious problem with collecting and reporting data. So, our capacity building sessions will include
1. Arriving at a national consensus on what the actual figures are across the 17 SDGs. A national consensus will be reached when all stakeholders submit all available data to us before the event begins. This data is then compiled and collated. It will then be presented to the attendees to reach a national consensus.
2. Identifying the gaps after a national consensus has been reached. By comparing the given figures to the population and also using the targets and indicators attached to the 17 SDGs. This will enable us to learn from previous mistakes and identify areas that need reform and improvements.
3. Reviewing existing national development agendas to assess it for progress and shortcomings. By doing so, we are able to use the new figures to make informed policy decisions. Therefore, policies like Economic recovery and growth plan summary (ERGP) can feed off the updated data and improve on their policies.
4. Obtaining a renewed commitment to measuring and reporting impact by all stakeholders. commitments will be renewed by stakeholders to ensure that by 2030, we are at least 70% closer to achieving these global goals. Renewing commitments means that stakeholders will sign a paper and electronic copy of a commitment, re-adopting the Sustainable development goals. By doing so, anyone who hasn’t signed this commitment can be held liable and can be petitioned.
5. Develop a central and transparent reporting dashboard housed within the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National planning. The purpose of this dashboard is to help drive the collection of end-to-end data from stakeholders. Collected data will then be analyzed and the results can be used to measure impact across all agencies.
6. Knowledge sharing sessions where all players are present to share knowledge that will help increase the capacity of all evaluators present. The stakeholders will have sessions that will properly train them and build their capacity to collect data, measure data. Report data and use credible evidence. By doing, they are able to apply all that has been discussed during these sessions (as mentioned from point 1-5) in their daily routines as evaluators. We expect that after these sessions, the impact will be noticed.