Monitoring & Evaluation: perspectives for the future Monitoring & evaluation as the set of actions, procedures & systems geared to register and analyse the activities in the light of the planning, mission and vision has been done by agri-agencies through the use of agro-info.net. The system has so far played a role in exchanging information on projects, allocate funding from one agri-agency to another and from the central AgriCord to the members. It also fostered the creditability and legitimacy amongst back donors, not in the last place because it appeals to the notion of the need of increasing aid transparency. Further development of the system is necessary to allow others, most notably farmers’ organisations, to participate as well and become the subject and active users of the system. This will be done in consultation with AgriCord and the agri-agencies. Agriterra plans to do this as part of the One for All programme of AgriCord.
An initial assessment of the M&E systems put in place by IFAD together with AgriCord during workshops with the regional networks of Sub-Saharan Africa (EAFF, ROPPA, PROPAC and SACAU) was undertaken in 2012. Based on this initial assessment a draft proposal for the development of a simple M&E framework was developed and shared with RFOs during the start-up workshop of the SFOAP Main Phase (Addis Ababa – March 2013). Agreement was reached on the need to further support RFOs for the development of their M&E systems based on the proposal.
AssignmentThe support will be based on two complementing items: (a) the development of the M&E system of the SFOAP, taking into account and to be integrated (to the extent possible) with existing M&E systems of the RFOs/NFO; (b) the development of the M&E practices within Farmers Fighting Poverty, as supported by AgriCord, including the re-design of agro-info.net.The effort is a joint initiative supported by AgriCord and IFAD.

New plans have to be elaborated for further the development of agro-info.net related to the result measurement and audit trail. This is on these aspects:1. The harmonisation of deliverables, targets and cross-cutting issues as impact indicators among agri-agencies, and farmers’ organisations2. Securing the audit trail on data by offering farmers’ organisations possibilities for direct data entry, notably on organisation data, targets and their realisation. 
These projects have to be implemented without jeopardising the functioning of agro-info.net as management information system for agri-agencies. 
Harmonisation of deliverables and targetsA plan for this area is based on a careful analysis of the disposition, willingness and possibilities of the stakeholders involved to go on this path/road. Maybe, for the time being it is sufficient to constitute a coalition of the willing, of -let us say- three or four agri-agencies, including one of the recent members, two regional farmers’ organisations and a few national organisations. An inventory on possible participants can be done by an Agripool experts or other expert(s) with a clear terms of reference. 
Once proven that this coalition is willing and able to implement such a scheme, it will need careful implementation with officers in Arnhem, Leuven, the other HQ of the implied agri-agencies, regional and national bodies. Planning of these actions, the deployment of personnel and the recruitment of new personnel can be planned for as an outcome of the inventory phase. 
It is in this process/project that also the aid transparency issues will be tackled.
Audit trailThis project is derived from the first one and a kind of pathway preparer for the third one. It is an action-research project to get 10 representative farmers’ organisations into a new way of using agro-info.net. They will themselves enter all the data in their organisation sheets and the ones referring to projects. The responsible officer will need to check with software developers on the technical possibilities and customer friendly applications to introduce data from computers or even other devices (Apps on mobile phones). At the same time, intensive working relations have to be established with ten farmers’ organisations to work towards a clear understanding of the reporting in terms of targets and deliverables, up to the point that they go and use the web based interface for submitting these data.
A plan of actionThe plan of action gives a time frame for the set-up of the coalition of the willing and the careful implementation of the plan
A coalition of the willingAn inventory on possible participants has to be made. • All agri-agencies are approached with the request to respond to a memo written by Kees Blokland, Agriterra. • Agri-agencies will be approached to explain the details of the plan further and asked if they are willing to support it.• National farmers organisations will be asked for support the plan; details of the plan will be discussed during a meeting with their leaders, organised in April/May 2013.
In April the agri-agencies and farmers organisations that are willing to support the plan will come up with their monitoring and evaluations tools they already use; they will indicate what elements they would like to have included in agro-info.net and they will have a look at the present deliverables and targets to indicate which elements are usable by them.
Visits to the farmers organisations and agri-agencies will be planned to work out the options proposed and based on all the information gathered a plan will be developed in which all common elements will be included. 
Together with a programmer, the feasibility of the elements to be included in agro-info.net will be looked at and a time frame will be set-up to build it into agro-info.net.

the harmonisation of deliverables, targbets and cross-cutting issues as impact indicators among agri-agencies and farmers' organisations. Securing the audit trail on data by offering farmers' organisations possibilities for direct data enty