Dakar, Senegal — There exist significant challenges in many development projects and programmes implemented in Africa, irrespective of the sector, from the design to the operational stages.Monitoring and evaluation is cited as a major weakness in the management of projects and programmes in Africa. Measurable objectives, indicators, methods for the measurement of benefits and the determination of costs, funding sources are examples of factors crucial in evaluating a project or a programme that are often lacking in many African countries.

IDEP was approached by the Republic of Benin and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) for the delivery of training sessions on the Evaluation, Monitoring and Post-Evaluation of Development Projects and Programmes for the benefit of the country's officials.

The intensive two-week session sponsored by BADEA that ran at IDEP from 3-14 June 2013 gathered a group of ten officials and fifteen officials from the Autonomous Redemption Fund (CAA) of the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Development, Economic Analysis and Prospective (MDAEP) of Benin respectively. Its aim was to provide the twenty-five participants with knowledge, tools and techniques for the efficient management of the development projects and programmes they are involved in implementing. It is expected that thanks to this tailor-made course that had been designed to be "hands-on", they will be able to effectively and efficiently apply the knowledge and skills acquired at IDEP for better performance. They are also expected to train their colleagues.

The discussions at the opening ceremony pointed out the importance of various issues including the availability and use of data already addressed by IDEP through its short term course on Data Analysisfor Development Planners (the 2013 session ran from 6th to 17th May).