Overview

The Great Himalaya Trail Development Programme (GHTDP) is harnessing tourism with a market-led approach to improve livelihoods and bring sustainable development opportunities to remote and poor communities in impoverished Nepal mountain regions through the creation of an iconic and globally significant new tourism product for Nepal.

GHTDP contracted ODI to develop, in close consultation with key stakeholders, a collaborative planning, monitoring & evaluation (PM&E) strategy and framework, implementation plan and tools to track progress against GHTDP’s objectives and indicators, by revising existing results chains and indicators.

Specific tasks

1.         Review the existing GHTDP PM&E framework, manuals and design document.

2.         Lead an ‘appreciative inquiry’ based workshop of the project and existing PM&E practices with key stakeholder agencies represented on the working committee

3.         Review existing data gathering tools & documentation mechanisms, including the establishment of currently available baseline information with each agency..

4.         Streamline reporting formats and processes so they generate data that helps prove the programmes’s contribution to impact (rather than merely being accountability mechanisms) and avoids costly data collection.

5.         A similar process should occur in the 5 districts with key service providers and partners such as District Development Committees

6.         Should gaps in data exist then the PM&E expert(s) will need to discuss the baseline data information that needs to be collected with partners

7.         The PM&E expert(s) will then need to work with partners to collect the required baseline values of the key indicators.

8.         Update and fine tune the GHTDP PM&E framework in light of previous steps.

9.         Articulation and ownership of a GHTDP PM&E framework with agreed progress and outcome indicators, within which activity/project-specific partner goals and objectives are embedded.

10.     Evaluate the GHTDP pilot phase in Humla and Dolpa in line with SNV’s evaluation guidelines and the pilot design.

11.     At the beginning of the contract a common understanding of GHT objectives (and indicators to measure progress) should be achieved, at the end of the contract an overarching PM&E framework should be functioning.