Module 4 – Evaluating & Monitoring Local Policy Schemes on Disability Issues

By the end of the Module, learners should be able to:

• introduce and establish the importance of Evaluation and Monitoring
• become better familiar with the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 and EU’s Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030
• become better familiar with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)
• delve into the importance of Mainstreaming Disability
• take a closer look at the local policy schemes on disability matters in the consortium’s countries
• acquire knowledge about Monitoring Mechanisms

Introduction

What is the role and the importance of Evaluation and Monitoring?

• Careful and consistent monitoring and evaluation of a country’s local policy schemes are essential for improving and maintaining care, services and treatment related to disability matters as well as for guiding future policymaking.
• The act of evaluating and monitoring the performance of local policy schemes offers liability and transparency in terms of the resources used, impacts policy learning, and encourages the legitimacy of public action.

What is Evaluation and Monitoring?

• “Monitoring is the collection and analysis of information about a project or programme, undertaken while the project/programme is ongoing.
• Evaluation is the periodic, retrospective assessment of an organisation, project or programme that might be conducted internally or by external independent evaluators” (A step by step guide to Monitoring and Evaluation, 2014, p. 5).

Monitoring & Evaluation “can help you assess what difference you are making and can provide vital intelligence, for example to help you:

• assess and demonstrate your effectiveness in achieving your objectives and/or impacts on people’s lives;
• improve internal learning and decision making about project design, how the group operates, and implementation, i.e., about success factors, barriers, which approaches work/don’t work etc.;
• empower and motivate volunteers and supporters;
• ensure accountability to key stakeholders (e.g., your community, your members/supporters, the wider movement, funders, supporters);
• influence government policy;
• share learning with other communities and the wider movement;
• contribute to the evidence base about effectiveness and limits of community action.”

(A step by step guide to Monitoring and Evaluation, 2014, p. 6)

The European Union’s Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030.

• To guarantee that disability remains a priority on the EU policy agenda, the European Commission encourages and advises all EU institutions and agencies “to include disability matters in their policies and actions, and to consult persons with disabilities and their representative organisations throughout the policymaking process” (Europa, 2021).
• In addition, through the Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and for the achievement of its goals, the European Commission promises close collaboration between Member Stakes and stakeholders for the creation of a Disability Platform in 2021.