Mekong Institute (MI) opened the “Web-Based Monitoring and Evaluation System for Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Funded Projects” e-training on August 10, 2020 as part of its mission to strengthen the effective delivery and impact of Mekong-Lancang Cooperation (MLC) projects through a country-based and regional Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system.
“This web-based M&E system will help government officials track the progress and measure the results of each MLC project. This will also provide officers from the MLC Secretariat and each Project Implementing Agency in the region timely project performance feedback for course correction, if necessary” Mr. Madhurjya Kumar Dutta, MI’s Trade and Investment Facilitation Director, said during the opening session.
The centralized M & E system was requested by government officials from Cambodia, P.R, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam during the MI-facilitated “Project Management and Evaluation of Subregional Development Projects” training last June 2019 so they could better manage, monitor, and assess the multitude of MLC projects.
From 2017 to 2018 alone, the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Fund has approved 270 projects across the areas of connectivity, production capacity, cross-border economic cooperation, water resources, and agriculture and poverty reduction—with more projects underway for 2019 and 2020.
“The strength of this user-friendly system is that it will be designed according to the requirements of each Mekong-Lancang member country,” Mr. Dutta explained. He added that at the end of the training course more than 29 government and MLC Secretariat representatives from the region will be able to build and operationalize their own M&E mechanism through the use of standard results-based management tools.
Structured as an engaging one-day online session, the e-training will run for seven hours from August 10 to 17, 2020. The activity is part of MI’s “Capacity Building for National Coordinators of Mekong-Lancang Cooperation” Project, which is implemented in cooperation with Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and supported by the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Special Fund of P.R. China.
