Result Based Monitoring and Evaluation is a management strategy used by organisations or governments to ensure that projects, programs and policies they undertake achieve their clearly stated results. This approach has come as a result of increasing internal and external pressures demanding accountability, transparency and results thus enhancing development effectiveness. RBME is a cultural shift from the traditional M&E as it focuses on better measurement of performance and more systematic monitoring and reporting; thus bringing about culture of learning, transparency and accountability in an organisation. Result based monitoring can be defined as continuous process of collecting and analyzing information to compare how well a project, a program or policy is performing against expected results. It is also known as outcome monitoring because it involves collecting of information on an ongoing basis regarding the progress towards an outcome, and then compares the current situation against the baseline for outcome indicators and assess and analyse the situation. In this process, Programme Managers track the outputs, that is the actual achievements and then measure their contributions to outcomes by assessing the change baseline conditions.
This shift in the way monitoring thus calls for the use of unique features in monitoring. These include establishing a baseline data, selecting outcome indicators of performance, and designing mechanisms that include planned actions such as field visits, stakeholder meetings and systematic analysis or reports. This will then show whether the project is a success or failure in achieving its desired outcomes.Outcome evaluation on the other hand is an evaluation that covers a set of related projects, programmes and strategies intended to bring about a certain outcome.
It a new approach helps to unearth underlying factors affecting project or programme during its life cycle. Therefore, it can help in recommending course of actions to be taken so as to bring about improvement; this information will also be vital in improving performance of future projects as well as generation lessons learned for programmme managers.
