Contribution of monitoring and evaluation practices on perfomance of horticultural projects

Abstract

The study aims to examine how monitoring and evaluation practices contribute to performance of horticultural projects in Tanzania, Performance of Horticultural projects have not been up to predetermined standards in various aspects. For this reason, Institutional Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) practices are spurred by demand for project effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, accountability, information frameworks, quality, and availability of M & E technologies and instruments and several studies have been done on horticultural project performance concurred by effective monitoring and evaluation practices but few from the Tanzania chapter. Studies have shown that projects that have weak or lack specific monitoring and evaluation practices on average record low rating performance as measured by scope, timeline and resource utilization. importance of involving community in projects but assessing their influence on performance of projects were not properly assessed. The study utilized a questionnaire and interview in collecting primary data where they were distributed to TAHA employees from all departments and documentary reviews to collect secondary data from TAHA office so as to ensure data collected gives answers to the objective. This data was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods, run on computerized statistical package of social scientists (SPSS). Findings of the study show that monitoring and evaluation as a management function, indeed has influence on project performance the results insinuate that most employees agreed that organizational leadership is the highest contributing factor of a monitoring and evaluation practices as it results to interaction between the employees, procedures, data, technology and key stakeholders and strong and supportive organization’s leadership that greatly determines effectiveness of M&E practices and their efforts to be justifiable and seen as adding value unit. By concluding, the study open room for other studies to address much information on factors which influence monitoring and evaluation on performance of horticultural projects before and during implementation project activities.