The practice of Third-Party Monitoring (TPM) is often associated with accountability and increased quality that are the backbone of the humanitarian principles. In the context of humanitarian aid and insecure contexts, TPM is employed when the access of the organization’s staff is limited due to open conflicts or limited accessibility to sites or districts. While TPM may be seen as an integral part in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), using the practice as a risk management tool in volatile contexts as a replacement to direct field monitoring from the agency’s own staff raises issues of quality, ethics, and technique.
What is TPM and why do we need it?
TPM refers to the practice of employing external parties – whether an organization or an individual consultant – to collect, monitor, verify and analyze data. The main aim is to increase compliance in places where access is limited and where data monitoring is needed. It is perceived as a method of accountability; by bringing in an independent consultant – whether an individual or a consultancy firm – an independent perspective is expected to review the performance of a project. By hiring outside parties that are autonomous – they are separate to the project’s management structure and the beneficiaries. The separating line lies in the project; while the TPM organization will have access to project proposals and key implementing partners, the organization does not have any stakes in the project. However, where ties remain is at the financial level; the TPM consultant relies on the funding of the organization in order to carry out the monitoring. As third parties collect and analyze data from the field, they are then able to assess the quality of the project and whether the implementation of activities and their outcomes match the initial aims and goals set out in the project design.
Yet, the use of TPM as a last resort to data monitoring poses constraints as TPM should not replace an organization’s own data monitoring by its own staff but rather should be complementary by filling in the evidence gap, not being the sole evidence gatherer. While TPM can increase quality by giving recommendations based on the output data gathers and provide accountability through continual monitoring and evaluation, using third parties does not exclude conflicts of interest. On the contrary, TPM can raise additional conflicts of interest.
Conflicts of interest in TPM: the key issues and possible solutions
In the TPM project cycle, many different actors are involved. In order to evaluate whether a particular project has been successful and achieved its objectives, donors, key informants, beneficiaries, businesses and the organization’s own staff are contacted and interviewed in order to research the different perspectives as to the success and impact of the project. When so many different actors are involved, – actors with divergent roles, conflicts of interests can arise. The organization that implemented will want a positive outcome in order to continue receiving funding for the project. The donors can also try and influence the research as they have a stake in the outcome of the research. For example, let’s say one of the UN agencies wants a TPM of one of their projects, as the independent organization conducting the TPM, the funding is provided by the UN and therefore can try and sway the research methods and results. The TPM organization is tied to the UN by its funding, so can it truly be independent?
In order to avoid conflicting parties from influencing the monitoring of data and projects, TPM must be conducted by independent organizations that do not have a direct stake in the implementation and outcome of the project in question. Once the proposal is approved, the TPM organization must conduct the research autonomously and only reveal the findings once the research is completed. While this is easier said than done, continuous monitoring and research ethics and validity should be prioritized in TPM. Through certain guidelines, such as a rigorous methodology that ensures transparency throughout the whole data collection process as well as the protection of the participants. The TPM organization will then only share its finding during the final report, once the data has been analyzed, to avoid any coercion during the research. This way, an ethical and transparent TPM can be conducted.
While conflicts of interests are inevitable when diverging actors work under a same project, quality data monitoring and unbiased assessment reports can still be written with the use of TPM. TPM must be conducted by an independent external organization. When performed well, TPM is of great value to ensure neutrality and validity of the monitoring and evaluation of a project, which is done through research transparency and independence.
Sources
- https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/blog/third-party-monitoring-volatile-environments
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f82d1cf8fa8f5044f333664/SAVE__2016__The_use_of_third-party_monitoring_in_insecure_contexts.pdf
- https://ideas-global.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IDEAS-2030eval-pub-full.pdf#page=177
About the Author
Saoirse Cahill is a Junior Officer in the Proposal Writing Department at Trust. She is a recent graduate at the University of Amsterdam, completing a Master’s Degree in International Relations with a specialization in conflict studies and trauma. She has a strong interest in the sectors of livelihood and Social Psychological Support in conflicts and insecure contexts.
Learn more about Saoirse on LinkedIn.
