Kathmandu, January 18:

The Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare is developing ‘Monitoring and Evaluation Indicators’ to ensure effective monitoring and evaluation of the programmes and activities of International Non-Government Organisations (INGOs) working in different sectors and regions of the country.

A task force formed on December 8 will develop specific and general indicators to evaluate and monitor the INGOs as per their work, said Rituraj Bhandari, under-secretary at the ministry.

The task force comprises representatives from the Women Ministry, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Local Development, the National Planning Commission and the Social Welfare Council.

“While monitoring will be a continuous process that will be carried out randomly, the evaluation will be carried out on periodic basis. This will go a long way in ascertaining whet-her the concerned organisations are sticking to their programmes, budget, target goals and National Plan of Action,” Bhandari said. He added the task force would collect data, analyse and disseminate them to develop the evaluation and monitoring system.

Shyam Sundar Sharma, spokesperson for the Ministry and coordinator of the task force, said, “Keeping in view the inadequacy of SWC’s programme to monitor and evaluate INGOs, the task force has been formed to strengthen and make the monitoring and evaluation process more systematic and effective,” he added.

Sharma said the Ministry has for the first time allocated budget for efforts to develop systematic process for monitoring and evaluating INGOs this year.

“The task force will recommend its outcome to the INGO Project Analysis and Facilitation Committee formed in September 2004. The committee will forward its recommendation to the Ministry,” said Sharma, adding that the Miniatry will finally pass the same to the SWC.

Meanwhile, another pa-nel has been formed to categorise around 150 INGOs operating in Nepal. “This is being done to impart legitimacy to the INGOs and their work,” said Bhandari.

“The INGOs will be classified on the basis of their programmes, their work in the geographical region, their target groups, their policies and objectives to meet the National Plan of Actions and time period,” he said. He said the categorisation will help to know the INGOs’ status, contribution and areas of work.