By Augustus Nkhwazi

Mzuzu, April 15, Mana: The Economic Planning and Development (EP&D) under Ministry of Finance (MoF) says it looks forward to creating a conducive monitoring and evaluation (M&E) environment for evidence based programming and policy decisions in the public sector.

Principal Economist at EP&D, Joseph Maliki made the remarks during a National Monitoring and Evaluation Policy (NMEP) dissemination meeting at Mzuzu City Chambers on Tuesday.

Maliki said the NMEP will bring about public trust and good governance in the public sector.

He noted that before the policy, a lot of uncoordinated system approaches existed among departments and created gaps which he said the policy seeks to bridge.

“Institutions were operating monitoring activities without guidelines and that created inconsistencies,” he said.

He added that the EP&D is scaling up efforts to have the M&E systems institutionalized in order to achieve improved public sector service delivery, accountability, and good governance.

Maliki told the meeting that previously Malawi did not have the policy hence developing it is critical to providing the necessary framework.

Speaking earlier, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)for Mzuzu City Council (MCC) Gomezgani Nyasulu applauded the Ministry of Finance for the policy saying it is vital for ensuring vibrant monitoring systems even for Mzuzu City.

He said national policies are important as they provide sanctions for monitoring systems.

“I like the sanctions included in the M&E which empowers my office to closely follow and assess contributions and respond to needs of the community,” he said.

He added that previously it was challenging to discipline project implementors over under-performance as there were no guidelines to base the discipline upon.

The CEO called upon council officials to make use of the policy for them to move forward with it’s development objectives.

He assured them that the delegation from EP&D that MCC will do it’s best to ensure consolidation of efforts by various  stakeholders such as the faith community, the private sector and Non- Governmental Organizations, among others.

The policy, developed in 2024, will run up to 2027.

It seeks to enable ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to continuously generate quality data to measure the level of achievement of development policies and programmes.