MANILA, Philippines – To strengthen local expertise on impact evaluation, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), with support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Philippines, commenced a training program specifically designed to build confidence and competence in conducting and utilizing evaluations. 

In collaboration with the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP), the first phase of NEDA’s initiative -- Capacity Development Program on Impact Evaluation -- was a two-week intensive training course held on 17-28 April 2023 in Metro Manila.  

“This program aims to have a pool of evaluation experts within the government, within NEDA, and within the state universities, and colleges (SUC) to collaborate with each other and with other actors, so that, at the end of the day, we are able to produce robust, quality impact evaluations,” remarked NEDA Undersecretary Carlos Bernardo O. Abad Santos. 

Phase 1 includes a Technical Course for the technical staff of NEDA Regional Offices and nominated representatives from the SUCs, and an Executive Course dedicated for NEDA Regional Directors/Assistant Directors. Throughout the training course, the technical staff went through a series of lectures and workshops on preparing, conducting and managing, utilizing, and communicating impact evaluations. 

“This could be the start for our region to conduct our own project evaluations. The results then would be the basis of our prioritization of our monitoring activities and in identifying which projects to invest in to help us hit our development goals for our region,” training participant, Engr. Garnelo Jose Cupay of NEDA-CARAGA, expressed in an interview. 

Meanwhile, the two-day Executive Course conducted on 20-21 April 2023 aimed to build managers’ appreciation and understanding of impact evaluation and enable them to guide their staff in conducting impact evaluations that support the implementation and updating of the Philippine Development Program (PDP).

In his remarks, UNDP Resident Representative Dr. Selva Ramachandran reaffirmed UNDP's commitment to the partnership with NEDA. He highlighted that “UNDP takes pride in having worked with NEDA to strengthen the Philippines’ capacity for M&E since 2018 through the Strategic M&E Project—an initiative recognized by the UNDP global headquarters through our Administrator Achim Steiner. We will continuously support such initiatives towards our vision of producing more local M&E experts and practitioners and promoting an enriched culture of evaluation in the Philippines.”

The second phase of the CapDev Program will focus on the actual implementation of the impact evaluation of a select number of NROs with guidance from impact evaluation experts. This phase will complete the program’s mission towards building local expertise, ensuring that institutional knowledge is reinforced, and that policies and programs, especially new ones, leverage upon such institutional knowledge. Outputs of the CapDev program will be presented during the 10^th M&E Network Forum in November 2023. 

The Strategic Monitoring and Evaluation Project (SMEP) is a collaborative initiative between NEDA and UNDP which aims to strengthen the capacities of NEDA and select government agencies to conduct evaluations that support the achievement of the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

NEDA, as mandated by the Philippine Constitution, is the government’s independent socioeconomic planning body. 

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