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4 Planning a Self-Assessment Module

Having been equipped with all you need to develop your monitoring and evaluation plan, in Section 4 8
you will design a self-assessment matrix, your key tool for monitoring and evaluating the IEA process.

Internally-conducted monitoring and evaluation (i.e., self-assessment) as recommended in Section
2.2 requires planning. The International Development Research Centre (Lusthaus and others 1999)
recommended a number of important aspects for planning your self-assessment, such as:

? issues for self-assessment; Abu Dhabi, UAE

? measures that will help you answer questions you have about various organizational and performance
issues;
? data sources to answer these questions;

? methods of data collection best suited to your questions, realities and constraints; and

? priorities and frequency for checking progress.

Below are three recommended steps for self-assessment that you could follow.

? Step 1 Identify major issues and monitoring questions, and develop specific measures.

? Step 2 Identify sources of data and data collection methods.
? Step 3 Set priorities and frequency of monitoring.

4.1 Step 1. Identify Major Issues and Monitoring Questions, and Develop Specific
Measures

The first step in a self-assessment is to identify major issues that should be monitored and evaluated,
and the key questions associated with these issues. Based on the framework introduced in Section 3,
key issues and questions to be addressed include the following:

Outcomes

? Your Change Statement – Have the desired improvements in policies and policy processes that you
identified in your impact strategy been realized? What other improvements in policies and policy
processes have you observed during and following your national IEA process? (see section 3.3.1

for guidance)
? Effective Relationship Management – What changes in the thinking and actions of policy makers
and decision makers (and other important relationships) have you observed? (see Table 2 for
guidance)

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