By Elias Ngalame
The Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development and the National Institute of Statistics are visiting local municipalities in the country to carry out grassroots assessment of the impact of the Public Investment Budget for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial years on the living conditions of the population.
The evaluation runs from 12 August to 30th September, 2024 according a Press release from MINEPAT.
“ This deployment aims to address the shortcomings identified in the execution of public investment projects in order to improve the efficiency of programming and budgeting of investment operations. It will make it possible, among other things, to capture the perception of local officials and development actors on the quality of the execution of public investment projects and their impact. It will also assess the contribution of these projects to job creation and the structural transformation of the rural economy and to carry out a spatial and dynamic analysis of the indicators of changes induced by these projects,” the release noted.
It should be recalled that this operation is the fourth of its kind, after those carried out in 2014, 2019 and 2021, which made it possible to capture the perception and degree of satisfaction of the beneficiary populations on the changes brought about by the construction of socio-community infrastructure: schools, health facilities, drinking water supplies, roads and electrification.
The process involves a data collection mission from beneficiary populations in order to assess the extent on how BIP projects have improved their living conditions.
The Public Investment Budget (PIB) according to MINEPAT, is the main tool available to the State to drive inclusive economic growth and sustainable development through the implementation of projects that have a significant socio-economic impact on the standard of living of the population. The PIB materializes all the investments that the State undertakes to make during a budgetary year.
“ The PIB thus provides each year several projects of different dimensions and at several scales, particularly at the municipal level. These projects are identified either by the populations at the grassroots level or by officials at the level of public administrations,” the MINEPAT document explains.
It however notes that it is the Heads of Ministerial Departments who present the projects of their respective sectors during the budget conferences where these projects are debated according to the priorities, directives and general orientations contained in the Presidential Circular relating to the preparation of the State budget.
The national budget envelope devotes an average of 30% of resources annually to public investment expenditure. The interest of this budget allocation for the Government through MINEPAT is to rationalize the geographical distribution of projects registered each year in the project log book, so that they are real vectors of harmonious and equitable development.
“However, it is clear that the reality on the ground does not seem to reflect this desired ideal. In rural areas in particular, problems of access to infrastructure, including schools, health facilities, drinking water supplies, rural electrification, and roads persist. Unfortunately, these deficit does not seem to contribute to the expected improvement in the living conditions of the populations,” the document explains.
Several discussions have thus been initiated to strengthen the impact of the investment budget on the living conditions of the populations.
It is in this context that MINEPAT has initiated several monitoring and evaluation strategies, including, visits by MINEPAT teams to all regions to identify the priority needs of the populations, strengthening the legal framework of the BIP Local Participatory Monitoring Committees, organization in all regions of workshops to consolidate Priority Investment Plans (PIPs) at the local level.
The evaluation of the assessment at the base of the BIPs makes it possible to complete the system by bringing to the attention of the central administration, the assessment that the beneficiary populations have of the impact of the projects financed by the BIP on the improvement of their living conditions, and the assessment that they have of the budgetary processes (Planning, programming, execution and control of the BIP). Till date, three evaluations of this type have already been carried out. The first was carried out in 2014 (EAB-BIP 2014) and was limited to the assessments of local stakeholders (Prefects, Sub-Prefects and Mayors). The second, carried out in 2019 (EAB-BIP 2019), made it possible to capture the perceptions and the degree of satisfaction of the beneficiary populations through project managers and certain representatives of the population (village chiefs, heads of local project management committees, mayors, municipal development executives) on the changes brought about by the implementation of the BIP for the 2015 and 2016 budget years in certain municipalities located in rural areas. The third, carried out in 2021 (EAB-BIP 2021), made it possible to capture the perceptions and the degree of satisfaction of the beneficiary populations (households, project managers, local development actors) on the changes brought about by the implementation of public investments of a social and community nature recorded in the BIP project log book for the 2018 and 2019 budget years in forty municipalities located mainly in rural areas.
“ In order to address the shortcomings noted in the implementation of projects from previous BIPs, and also to improve the efficiency of programming and budgeting, it would be interesting to conduct a new assessment of the impact of BIP projects on improving the living conditions of grassroots populations. This new assessment will make it possible to assess, on the one hand, the dynamics of the evolution of the impact and access indicators measured during the assessment of the impact of the 2018 and 2019 BIPs, to assess the change in relation to non-beneficiary populations, and on the other hand to take stock of the projects built, rehabilitated, functional and non-functional. This will allow the Government to intervene more effectively, in particular by avoiding implementing the same projects each year and by identifying integrated projects,” the document stated.
