The Douala Action Plan offers a new way forward
Representatives of governments, cooperating institutions, IFAD-supported programmes and projects, and IFAD staff met in Douala from 27 to 29 January for the traditional Regional Implementation Workshop.
Approximately 160 participants from West and Central Africa gathered for three days to:
* review the progress made towards implementation of the Bamako Action Plan and discuss the lessons that emerged from the process
* conceive a new, realistic action plan with verifiable indicators that will help improve project implementation
* reinforce collaboration among project staff, governments, civil society organizations and IFAD
* support knowledge and experience sharing among all project staff and partners
Workshop participants developed concrete short- and medium-term recommendations to improve the quality and performance of IFAD-financed programmes and projects.
The recommendations can be found in the Douala Action Plan for 2009-2010, which defines the objectives, activities, persons in charge, and indicators that will be used to assess and measure the results.
Participants formulated four groups of recommendations:
Improve the partnership between IFAD, governments and partners in the conduct of programmes and projects by Country Programme Management Teams
* Reinforce IFAD presence in the countries and in the region with the aim of improving policy dialogue and programme and project design
* Strengthen partnerships and information exchange during programme implementation
Improve loan management, implementation support and the performance of service providers
* Reinforce project capacity in administration, finance and human resource management
* Improve and strengthen project capacity in procurement and audits
Improve project monitoring and evaluation, impact, the results and impact measurement system, and sustainability
* Support the implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems, project impact and sustainability
* Promote post-project evaluations under the leadership of governments
Promote knowledge management and innovation
* Improve systematic knowledge management and sharing in project design and supervision
* Reinforce capacity in knowledge harvesting and documenting
* Improve knowledge and innovation sharing and transfer
For more information, please contact:
* Perin Saint-Ange, Regional Portfolio Adviser
p.saintange@ifad.org
* Zoumana Bamba, Knowledge Management Officer
z.bamba@ifad.org
Douala Action Plan (PDF, 33 kb)
2 July 2009
