For the June 10th Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Monitoring and Evaluation College pilot session, Synergy worked with Social Impact in designing and developing a training curriculum for the session on Management Information Systems. Social Impact is an organization dedicated to fostering dramatic improvements in the performance of organizations and programs workings to enhance the social and economic wellbeing of people around the world. Social Impact focuses primarily on the practices of democracy and governance, health and education, the environment, and economic growth. The goal of the training was to assist Millennium Challenge Accounts, which are the country-level entities in charge of managing and implementing MCC country compacts, in understanding how and when to use a Management Information System (MIS). Ultimately, an understanding of MIS will enable M&E specialists within individual MCAs to provide better information on results and to contribute to improved management of MCA programs. The M&E College is a one week training program designed to provide M&E related knowledge and skills to participants of the M&E College.
This training, which included hands-on exercises and a live demo, had four main components. Synergy’s staff trained participants and led discussions on “When to use an MIS”, “How to prepare a Scope of Work for an MIS”, “Managing an MIS Implementation”, and “Reporting from an M&E MIS”. Through these four components, participants were given a comprehensive overview of the array of key issues revolving around Management Information Systems.
Through Synergy’s presentation, trainees from around the world learned how to identify if their MCA has a need for an MIS, how to create a customized Scope of Work for an MIS, how to ensure the sustainability of an MIS implementation, and gained experience as to the benefits of MIS reporting tools. A hands-on demo helped participants visualize MIS reporting capabilities and see how those may support their work in concrete ways.
The MIS session, which was held at MCC headquarters in Washington, DC, received very positive reviews. Participants included officials from the MCAs of Nicaragua, Morocco, Ghana, Namibia, Georgia, Armenia, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Lesotho.
