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2015 marked a year to set new goals, and as the Sustainable Development Goals were launched, global momentum for the surgical patient had arrived. Academia, non-governmental organizations, student organizations and many other organizations and partnerships joined forces to attract the necessary attention to global surgery and to advocate for better care for patients without access to timely, affordable and safe surgical care. Many advocacy efforts in global surgery focus on systems strengthening as a way to increase access. In line with this idea The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery recommended the formulation of National Surgical, Obstetrics and Anesthesia Plans (NSOAPs) as a coordinated and strategic roadmap to improving surgical care around the world. NSOAPs are only the first step towards surgical system strengthening, and with every NSOAP that is implemented, the long-term impact of these plans will eventually come into scrutiny. NSOAPs must therefore contain robust data collection and reporting systems that will be will crucial for the monitoring and evaluation of NSOAPs, and also guide evidence-based policy making, research priority setting, and the attraction of more funding in the future. Ongoing global partnership will also be required to address other complex issues that arise as a part of the surgical planning process.

The use of Earth observation (EO) information and geospatial information technologies (GITs) for evidence-based decision-making is a growing opportunity because of open access and increased availability of data.

“Civilian Government Agencies” describes the array of U.S. government agencies encountered on the ground in peace and relief operations including the traditional foreign affairs departments—State, USAID, Defense, Commerce, and Agriculture—but also Treasury, Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services. Although this chapter deals mostly with U.S. agencies, it also includes sections on agencies in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan, and Canada. We have focused on efforts to improve the capacities of civilian agencies in complex operations. We have also included material on the legal authorities and appropriations constraints that agencies operate under, coordination across agencies, and monitoring and evaluation, as well as a section on humanitarian response under USAID’s general direction.

This chapter analyses the assessment of environmental results and their impact on competitive and financial performance. The literature review on studies in performance measurement and control systems of environmental strategy shows that, while the decision on environmental issues have become more and more important, high variability and limited standardization affects the environmental practices. Although several supranational institutions, international organizations, besides national laws, have provided environmental standards and metrics, the comparability of environmental performance remains very low. To clarify these aspects, we put forward a framework for identifying the most relevant key value drivers and performance indicators in order to facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of achieved environmental results. Integrating theoretical and empirical findings, our study shows a relative absence of indicators of competitive advantage and a predominant use of environmental qualitative and/or non-financial measures. By shedding light on the relationship between environmental strategies and environmental results, we suggest potential improvements for performance measurement and control of environmental dimension.

The article systematizes the basic methodological provisions, the main approaches to the monitoring and evaluation of the state support of agriculture. Critical features of existing approaches used to calculate the effectiveness of the support used by the World Trade Organization are determined. The article reveals the shortcomings of the approach to evaluation of the effectiveness of subsidization as a mechanism to enhance innovative activity in the crop production of the Pskov region. The analysis of the dynamics and trends of subsidization in crop production of the Pskov region, which showed a change in the vector of the support – the transition to per-hectare support for agrarians – is carried out. In the course of the study, a list of the lines of subsidization designed to ensure the innovative development of agricultural enterprises engaged in the crop production in the Pskov region is concretized. The author develops a methodological approach allowing to define the influence of subsidization on key economic indicators of production activity in the crop production of the Pskov region. The effectiveness of subsidization as a mechanism for increasing innovative activities of the regional crop production is evaluated.

Zimbabwe has experienced innumerable shocks and stressors which are bedeviling economic and social development. Shocks in the form of natural hazards (droughts, floods), epidemics, environmental degradation, and cash crisis severity, scope and impact have necessitated coalition of stakeholders and development of resilience building initiatives to counter shocks and stressors in a manner that protects livelihoods and recovery gains. This study sought to assess the effectiveness of implemented resilience building initiatives to counter shocks affecting rural communities of Chiredzi District, Zimbabwe. Initiatives were implemented through the Enhanced Community Resilience and Sustainability (ECRAS) projects led by Care International and Plan International targeting to increase the capacities of Chiredzi District communities to withstand shocks and stressors. Questionnaires, interviews, and direct field observations were used to gather field data. Questionnaires were electronically administered using kobo collect to respondents randomly selected from conveniently sampled wards involved in resilience building initiatives in Chiredzi District. Interviews were conducted with purposively sampled key informants who included District Agritex officer, District Administrator, District Social Services, Care International Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Plan Project facilitator and Ward Councilors. Findings revealed three main categories of resilience building initiatives in the rural communities of Chiredzi District, namely: crop production related initiatives; livestock production related initiatives; and social and well-being related initiatives. Resilience building initiatives are effective tools to deal with recurrent shocks and stressors in rural communities of Chiredzi District which are being projected to continue for the next decades.

This chapter addresses some of the major shocks that have significantly influenced the conditions in countries around the world and at the international governance and economic levels. By focusing on the global and local consequences of the most recent global pandemic and financial crises, the analysis helps highlight some of the regression of or challenges to the achievement of many of the SDGs and the implications of the resulting decreases in public sector budgets on the demand for and implementation of M&E.

Nigeria, like many other developing countries is actively promoting agricultural and food production to confront the challenge of providing adequate food supply. The Nigerian national food hygiene and safety policy was enacted to ensure the sale and consumption of wholesome food. However, our studies on Nigeria’s animal food safety status revealed that farm-to-fork; production, processing and sales procedures are sub-optimal. Additionally, there is a gap between research on possible impacts on human health, policy development and implementation. For example, antibiotics misuse by livestock farmers has impeded efficiency of antibiotic treatments leaving harmful residues in animal products. Control systems for animal food quality and safety should therefore range from operators along the food chain being well-informed, to external regulatory bodies. Animal food safety legislation should be followed by surveillance and collaboration among stakeholders (relevant governmental competent authorities, academia, non-governmental organisations, and industries) for effective planning and execution of Nigeria’s food hygiene and safety agenda. Food safety advisory/extension services is also advocated both to bridge the current gap as well as aid in the monitoring and evaluation of the different aspects of food safety from farm through processing, storage, conveyance, marketing to the table of consumers.

With a rich discussion of the role of monitoring and evaluation (M&E), the differences between monitoring and evaluation, and the various types of evaluations that can be undertaken, this chapter provides a rich assessment of the tools that evaluators can use to assess advancements in the SDGs, lessons learned, accountability, and the power of the interconnected nature of the SDGs. It also provides a critical assessment of the challenges that the evaluation domain faces.

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is an essential part of ensuring accountability, learning and enhanced approaches to policy and practice. However, as this chapter demonstrates, the culture of M&E is severely limited or absent in most countries for budgetary, cultural, and structural reasons and is often influenced by political and personal ambitions of those funding the evaluations and those undertaking them. These challenges, along with others discussed in this chapter, have contributed to the weakening of the field of evaluation and to the rise in demands for its professionalization through certifications and quality controls.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs—2000–2015) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs—2015–2030) have been guiding our work as clinical sociologists for two decades. These guideposts are intended to reduce poverty and more equitably distribute resources in developing countries. In addition to infrastructure and energy projects, education, and health, the new SDGs stress climate change, clean air and water, and closing gender gaps in economic opportunities. Increasingly, the bilateral, multilateral, and international development agencies, national planning departments, and civil society organizations are turning to the voices of stakeholders to help assess needs and determine impacts in development. Focus groups and key informant interviews have become a regular part of international development monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Qualitative research methods are gaining respect for their powerful analytical powers in exploring systems—how things work and what needs to be done to improve outcomes.

Pakistan is one of the key countries in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) where the latter is implementing a multibillion-dollar, multiyear investment plan known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). A collection of projects aimed at developing energy, industry and communication infrastructure, costing over USD 46 billion, CPEC is expected to contribute significantly to socio-economic development and poverty reduction in Pakistan. The main research question is, while implementing development projects in Pakistan, to what extent China adheres to its avowed principles of international development cooperation comprising features such as mutual respect, non-conditionality, equality, building local capacity and addressing actual needs of partner countries. Based mainly on the analysis of primary data collected during fieldwork in Pakistan, this research explores the extent to which the official narrative guides and influences the actual practice of China’s development cooperation on the ground. Although still evolving, the BRI and its constituent the CPEC, which is an investment-grant-loan model of financing in Pakistan, is an example of South-South Cooperation (SSC): the form of international development cooperation whereby "two or more developing countries pursue their individual or collective development through cooperative exchange of knowledge, skills, resources and technical expertise" (UNDP, 2007, p. 1). For the analysis of CPEC-related Chinese investment in Pakistan, this study uses an analytical framework developed by researchers from the South Africa chapter of the Network of Southern Think Tanks (NeST), a group of key research institutions from various developing countries dedicated to generating standardised, systematic and clearly comparable knowledge on SSC (Besharati & Rawhani, 2016; Besharati, Rawhani, & Rios, 2017). Established in 2015, and then refined and finalised in 2017 after a number of expert group meetings and field-based SSC case studies, the framework operationalises various conceptual issues related to the quality and development effectiveness of SSC. The framework, which is discussed later in some detail, comprises five dimensions and a set of 20 indicators. The overall framework and associated dimensions and indicators not only offer valuable parameters to assess the quality and effectiveness of SSC, but these are also closely related to the key principles and features of China’s foreign aid policy. The five key elements of the analytical framework are inclusive national ownership, horizontality, self-reliance and sustainability, accountability and transparency and development efficiency. Within this framework and associated parameters, this research examines the China-Pakistan development partnership under CPEC and explores the extent to which SSC principles are practiced. By systematically examining SSC in the form of Chinese investment and development cooperation projects in Pakistan, this study contributes to the limited body of academic literature on Chinese development cooperation with its key South Asian ally., Discussion Paper

The Agenda 2030 provides a universal target system covering a broad thematic spectrum including the key areas of people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership. There is a consensus among policy-makers and scholars that the implementation of the global goals relies on both an integrated (nexus) approach and the participation of all levels, especially the local level. Therefore, the paper focuses on the research question of how integrated management and participatory multi-stakeholder approach can be systematically realized at the local level, thus contributing to the implementation of the Agenda 2030. The authors aim to answer this question on the basis of experiences and results of a project which took place between January 2016 and April 2018 in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). In this two-and-a-half-year process, 15 municipalities developed individual Integrated Municipal Sustainability Strategies (IMSS) in the context of the Agenda 2030. The paper presents the methodical approach of the participation process and the results of a project-internal process-oriented monitoring and evaluation. The results show that the participation design has a direct influence on the outcome of the process. The central influencing factors identified are (1) political support from the heads of the administration, (2) the avoidance of creating parallel working structures by forming project-related working groups, (3) the independent working of the working groups, (4) the composition of steering committees (the representation of relevant stakeholders), (5) the involvement of important political decision-makers, and (6) an open negotiation process that ensures the participation of all participants/stakeholders.

This chapter interrogates the listening practices of NGO workers in headquarters and in-country today. On the basis of a wide range of interviews with NGO staff working for four UK-based INGOs, it examines the role of languages and cultural knowledge in the construction of NGOs’ listening efforts. It records the voices of NGO staff as they describe their listening experiences and the challenges and uncertainties they face as actors at the core of development projects who attempt to listen to a complex mix of voices, including those of local communities, partner organisations, NGO colleagues and international donors. The chapter examines NGO workers’ responses to questions related to listening as they emerged in interviews: firstly, listening as an institutionalised practice, linked to accountability, monitoring and evaluation, mainly taking place in English, and secondly, listening as an informal practice that takes place outside paper-based frameworks and in a mix of languages and through informal translation practices. The chapter underlines the relevance of the framework of the Listening Zone, which enables a conceptualisation of listening as a complex and hybrid process, in which various actors listen in a variety of languages, motivated by a range of different aims.

For successful design, implementation, and achievement of the leading area development program, systematic evaluation of various components of the existing irrigation system is necessary. Adequate monitoring and evaluation of performance are needed in order to determine how much irrigation water to apply; it is needed to estimate irrigation efficiency. There are many definitions of irrigation efficiency. Which one to use depends on which aspect one is interested in. A development plan, especially in a water-short area, improved and efficient water management practices can help to maintain farm profitability in an era of increasingly limited and more costly water supplies. Seepage loss in irrigation water conveyance and distribution systems is very significant as it forms the major portion of the water loss in the irrigation system. Irrigation conveyance losses controlled through piping may reduce the drainage requirement and enhance irrigation efficiency. As such, reliable estimates of quantities and extent of seepage losses from the conveyance and distribution canal become important. To achieve high performance in the surface irrigation system, it must be designed to irrigate uniformly, with the ability to apply the right depth at the right time. Properly designed, installed, maintained, and managed irrigation system greatly reduces the volume of irrigation water and hence saves energy and money. The water applying with best depth at the right time is maximizing performance with the surface irrigation system. So, it can save energy and money.

Agriculture is a very important sector in Pacific Island Countries (PICs), providing a significant source of food and income for households as well as substantially contributing to national economies. Agriculture is climatically sensitive, and climate change poses major threats to the continued productivity of this critically important sector in the future. This chapter highlights the current status of agriculture in PICs, and the pathways through which climate change is already, and will continue to, impact the sector. It then presents a range of case studies that illustrate systems-oriented approaches that recognize the foundational importance of healthy soils for building agricultural resilience under a changing climate. Finally, the chapter discusses key directions for building the resilience of the agriculture sector going forward. The key priorities of agricultural plans in relation to climate change are analyzed, and key opportunities for effectively realizing these priorities are discussed. Opportunities for increasing the resilience of the agriculture sector include using integrated vulnerability and risk assessment tools, focusing on applied research and emphasizing the accessibility of research products, establishing standardized and routine monitoring and evaluation guidelines, and seeking alignment between national, regional, and international mechanisms and agreements for increasing the resilience of agriculture. Transformational adaptation of agriculture in a changing climate is critical for the livelihoods and overall resilience of Pacific Island people.

This chapter presents findings from the analysis of the EGRA and EGMA end-of-project assessment results for the TELA radio, reading camp, Feed and Read and after-school tutoring components. To ensure objectivity, the TELA project was evaluated by a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team that worked independently of the academic and production teams. We have done our utmost to retain the core contents (except for some additional explanatory notes), of the monitoring and evaluation report drafted by Katherina Hamler in our M&E team.

Monitoring and evaluation (ME (ii) grants expenditures by grant holders; (iii) research productivity of grant holders; and (iv) student training and graduation rates. In some cases, research performing entities such as universities, science councils and NFs are held responsible by the funding agency for the monitoring of RI during the construction and implementation phase. Monitoring of RI also forms a key component of the annual reporting frameworks based on predetermined indicators aligned to funding activities and outcomes. Evaluation of such activities is needed in order to adapt and enhance the programmes as well as to ensure: (i) scalability of interventions; (ii) improve performance and (iii) highlight factors (internal and external) that affect implementation. This chapter presents a number of conceptual frameworks that are used to structure M&E criteria for the successful management of RI investments.