Monitoring and Evaluating National Urban Policy: A Guide (UN HABITAT)

Good monitoring and evaluation (M&E) establishes clear links between past, present and future initiatives and development results. Monitoring and evaluation can help an organization extract relevant information from past and ongoing activities that can be used as the basis for programmatic fine-tuning, reorientation and future planning: This includes establishing a baseline or database to monitor against objectives, outputs (throughout the policy process) and outcomes. Without effective planning, monitoring and evaluation, it would be impossible to assess if work is going in the right direction, whether progress and success can be claimed, and how future efforts might be improved.

The Guide recommends that national, regional and local governments be empowered to monitor and evaluate urban policies as they are not only aware of the demands, changing tasks and needs of their constituencies, but they are also conscious of the territorial and spatial inequalities that need to be highlighted in national policy making. This fits into the role of local government associations (LGAs), that support national–local dialogues and review policy from the local government perspective.   

It is geared towards anyone who has a stake in urban planning process, whether they are existing authorities at the different levels of government and their associations, citizens, academia or policy makers; and those that will be involved in monitoring and evaluation of the urban planning processes.  It provides key resources, and good practices for effective monitoring and evaluation.