The role of monitoring and evaluation for improving performance of development projects in Tanzania: a case study of selected Local Organizations.

This study was candied out in various selected local Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) operating in Tanzania. The investigation aimed at finding out whether Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) helps to improve performance of development projects. To explore this, the researcher investigated the following issues; the motive for conducting M&E, whether the motives are internal or external, types of M&E used, use of M&E information, other types of evaluation used, and usefulness of M&E in improving performance of development projects. This study used a descriptive research design. This helped to determine how M&E helped to improve performance of development projects in Tanzania. Fifteen (15) selected local organizations were used as a case study and a sample of seventy (70) respondents was obtained from the selected organization. The techniques used to collect data included documentary reviews, questionnaires and interviews. The findings demonstrated that, the motive for conducting M&E is to know the impacts of the projects on the target community, and is both internal and external. Most organizations use summative (impact) and formative (process) evaluation to evaluate their projects. M&E information is used to give feedback to stake holders. The types of monitoring used in development projects are inputs (resources) monitoring and process monitoring. Furthermore, the study revealed other types of evaluation used including participatory, external and internal evaluation. However, internal evaluation is not much appreciated by most respondents. Mistakes reported during M&E included procurement of poor quality project items. Furthermore, it was revealed that M&E helped to improve performance of development projects as it enabled the organizations to detect mistakes committed as well as to take corrective actions for the mistakes committed.