Evaluation short course in Australia: Summary report

<p dir="ltr">The Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the General Department of Budget, Ministry of Economy and Finance in Cambodia has a key role to operationalise a new Public Financial System Law which is to influence Performance-Informed Budget (PIB) and a stronger focus on monitoring and evaluation (M&E). The Department has started piloting the monitoring function in 2023 and will begin conducting the evaluation component in 2026. The guideline for M&E will also be going through revision from time to time until 2026. Since the functions of the M&E Department are still new, there is a need to build capacity of staff to fulfil their roles in conducting and commissioning evaluations. To address this, the Monitoring and Evaluation Department contracted the University of Technology, Institute for Sustainable Futures (UTS-ISF) to design and conduct a short course focused on evaluation for 10 staff in the Monitoring and Evaluation Department and 3 staff from the Public Financial Management (PFM) Reform Steering Committee. The course was conducted at the UTS Campus in Sydney, Australia, from May 13th to 17th, 2024. It was held in person and included 17 sessions over 5 days, with 6 trainers and 3 guest speakers. </p><p dir="ltr">This summary report's purpose is to document the process and learning from the Evaluation short course project, and to inform continuous improvement. </p><p dir="ltr">The summary report outlines the course activities, topics, valuable learnings, how course participants will apply their learning and feedback. </p><p dir="ltr">The primary audience is the Cambodian General Department of Budget, Ministry of Economy and Finance, and other interested government stakeholders in Cambodia. </p>