Puerto Princesa City, Palawan– To strengthen the database monitoring and to provide a more holistic program analysis of the gains of Kalahi CIDSS, the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of Kalahi CIDSS MIMAROPA conducted the Monitoring and Evaluation Forum (M&E Forum)  which aims to improve the skills and knowledge of the Municipal Data Encoders, Area Coordinators, and Community Empowerment Facilitators in Database Management, Grievance Redress System (GRS), Project Information Management System (PIMS), and Municipal Talakayan.

The four-day event has gathered 42 participants in Palawan Cluster and 87 participants in Mindoro, Marinduque, and Romblon (MiMaRo) Cluster.

Formerly known as Encoders’ Workshop, where the issues and queries about the program database are addressed, the said activity escalated into an M&E Forum to ensure the efficiency of not only the program data base but also the efficiency and effectiveness of the other standard methods in monitoring and evaluating the Kalahi CIDSS program namely the GRS, the PIMS, Sub-Project Geotagging, and the Municipal Talakayan.

Moreover, the M&E Forum served as a venue for coaching and addressing overall M&E Concerns and leveling off of knowledge regarding the M&E System in all levels, especially among ACTs. From this, everyone will know their roles and responsibilities in the system as well as the relevance of their roles in the overall program objectives.

On the first day of the activity, Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist (RMES) Marianne Amparo Guzman dicussed the Results-Based-Framework. She showed the participants how every output they submit to the regional office contribute to the overall success of the program whether it has a direct or indirect effect to the program’s and the region’s achievement of its goals. She also discussed the importance of decision making based on the available data generated by the team.

After the said discussions, the participants presented their Municipal Data. Here, the participants see how each municipality gathered their data and were assessed as to completeness, consistency and correctness of their database. Afterwards, they are taught by Miss Glessel Casiño, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer III for the Mindoro, Mariduque, and Concepcion Cluster techniques and tips in effectively using the Microsoft Excel– the primary software used in monitoring and evaluation.

On the last day of the training, the participants expressed their gratitude to attend a training like M&E forum. “Mas mapapaigi na ang aming pag encode ng data sa excel dahil sa mga natutunan namin na shortcuts at tips.” said Municipal Data Encoder of Coron.

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