Improve the decision-making process of the Ministry of Grassroots
Development, Youth and Youth Employment to reduce poverty in Togo  

Despite important structural reforms adopted by the Togolese state in recent years, which have led to encouraging growth prospects, inequality and poverty remain persistent. According to United Nations figures, 53.5% of the Togolese population lived below the poverty line in 2017. As part of the global approach to reduce poverty, the MDBIFJEJ expressed a commitment since 2008 to provide vulnerable populations with the "minimum subsistence level" by 2032.

To this end, the MDBIFJEJ – composed of three sectoral directorates and seven decentralised attached entities - has entered into a partnership with the NGO IDInsight to address the identified need to inform its public policy decisions with evidence-based data. The start-up phase of the project involved analysing the ministry's methodologies, systems and capacities, with a particular focus on coordinating the work of all its components in order to develop and manage an effective monitoring program and evaluation system. This primary stage led to the piloting of a first monitoring-evaluation system of two MDBIFJEJ related entities.

In order to support the Ministry in its desire to make decisions on project management based on evidence of impact, IDInsight plans to integrate its teams, to further strengthen the staff’s capacity to set up a robust and fluid monitoring-evaluation system, in a spirit of co-creation.

To this end, this project aims to train the teams in monitoring and evaluation techniques, define common indicators for all entities based on the theory of change, develop standardised procedures for data collection for all projects and create a team dedicated to reviewing sources of evidence.

FID’s support will enable to support the second phase of the project, which aims at strengthening the capacities of the five entities attached to the MDBIFJEJ not covered by the start-up phase. The objective is to equip them with the methods (mapping and definition of indicators), tools (design of data collection tools, creation of a platform for updating data) and training (in monitoring and evaluation) necessary to enable the deployment of informed public policies.

The partnership between the MDBIFJEJ and IDInsight in this second phase allows for the implementation of impactful, better-parameterised and targeted programs on a larger scale with the objective of reducing poverty in Togo.

• Establishing harmonised methodologies to evaluate MDBIFJEJ projects (analysis of programs, prioritisation according to their results, optimization of budget allocation);

• Improving the Ministry's capacity to plan and create effective public policies and programs, based on rigorous data of their impact;

• Improving monitoring of the MDBIFJEJ's strategy and steering of project performance in order to better coordinate their implementation;

• Increasing impact of the Ministry's decision-making process;

• Reducing poverty in the country