Taking Management Digital : Lessons from the Development of an Innovative Management Information System for Small Businesses in Ethiopia

Alibhai, Salman ; Strobbe, Francesco ; Villanger, Espen

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: INFORMATION SYSTEMS;    MONITORING AND EVALUATION;    PROJECT MANAGEMENT;    GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8608
RP-ID  :  WPS8608

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

In many aid projects, monitoring andevaluation is a static exercise driven by donor reportingrequirements. After project closure, there are seldomsustainable benefits of the monitoring and evaluationsystem. This paper examines how monitoring and evaluationcan be transformed into a dynamic tool for effective projectmanagement, with benefits carrying over beyond the typicalproject lifecycle. The paper assesses an innovative, digitalmanagement information system developed under the WomenEntrepreneurship Development Project, a Government ofEthiopia initiative financed by a World Bank InternationalDevelopment Association loan and grant funding from GlobalAffairs Canada. The paper examines the context of thedevelopment of the management information system, itseffectiveness, and its potential for sustainability.Ethiopia is among the poorest countries in the world, andgovernment administration units involved in administeringprojects often face funding and resource shortfalls. Thepaper demonstrates how effective and sustainable monitoringand evaluation systems can be developed even in challengingcontexts such as these, by focusing on simple technicalsolutions that can be maintained and refined locally,ensuring low development and maintenance costs compatiblewith government monitoring and evaluation budgets, andlinking project-level monitoring and evaluation to broadergovernment operations.