Diagnostic review of FSDA network's MRM systems

Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSDA) is a £30-million DFID-funded financial-sector deepening (FSD) programme that aims to reduce poverty across sub-Saharan Africa by building financial markets that are efficient, robust and inclusive.

One of FSD’s activities is the provision of strategic and operational support to their network, an alliance of nine FSDA organisations based in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Zambia.

The monitoring and results measurement (MRM) capacity across these nine FSDs varies considerably, which is not only problematic for the individual FSDs and their internal management, but also presents difficulties for the network as a whole when measuring the network’s impact and comparing the findings of similar interventions across FSDs.

FSDA contracted Genesis Analytics, first to conduct an assessment of the nine FSDs’ MRM systems to identify their MRM status quo, strengths and weakness and, second, on the basis of the assessment, to develop bespoke training sessions for each FSD to build its MRM capacity.

In doing so, Genesis developed an MRM system-assessment tool which assessed the MRM framework and tools as well as the MRM skills and capacity in each FSD. To complete the assessment tool, Genesis conducted an in-depth document review of the FSDs’ MRM documents and tools and interviewed MRM staff and intervention managers.

On the basis of this, Genesis delivered tailored MRM workshops to each FSD and provided each FSD with a detailed report of its MRM assessment findings and recommendations for improving its MRM system. The final deliverable was a synthesis report to FSDA that summarised the MRM findings across the FSD network with subsequent recommendations on how to support the network’s MRM needs.

The intervention managers and MRM teams reported that the workshops were valuable and contributed substantively to their teams’ MRM needs. Many of the FSDs have already begun implementing the recommendations from the MRM system assessment, integrating the recommendations into their MRM work plans and job descriptions.

At a network-level, most of the FSDs reported that they were keen to engage with FSDA further and share their MRM learnings across the network. Furthermore, FSDA has accepted the recommendations from the synthesis report and is undertaking a network-wide MRM training exercise to further support the MRM weakness identified through this assignment.