Conducting regional activities is one major task of the ASEANSAI Chairmanship as well as the Committees. The activities are designed and conducted by the different Committees which contribute to the achievement of the ASEANSAI goals, as anchored in the Strategic Plan.
During the Strategic Planning Workshop for the New Plan of 2018-2021, conducted in February 2017 in Bali, it became apparent that roles and responsibilities between SAIs, but especially between different committees, the Chairs and the Secretariat, are not always clear.
This has an impact on the way Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is currently implemented and, thus, how knowledge and learning are being documented. Knowledge Sharing is a key, however, to improve the processes within ASEANSAI and, eventually, achieve the agreed strategic goals.
Therefore, the workshop on Activity Management was held for three days, from 25 to 27 April 2017 in National Audit Academy of SAI Malaysia, Nilai, Malaysia.
The workshop aims to enable participants to widen their knowledge and professionalism in planning, coordinating, implementing and documenting activities effectively and efficiently. The workshop also covering four stages of activity management; Purpose, Planning, Execution, and Evaluation.
Accordingly, the workshop will become a good opportunity to level-off and clarify roles and responsibilities for future Monitoring & Evaluation of activities and strategic processes within ASEANSAI.
This includes an assessment of the current Document and Knowledge Management procedures, which are the basis for efficient Knowledge Sharing and learning within the regional organization.
16 participants from 8 ASEANSAI members’ countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) and 2 reprsentatives from GIZ joined the workshop.
In summary, the results of the meeting are as follow:
- Participants worked out a set of synchronized and amended templates for Activity Management, consisting of 7 documents. It was agreed that those documents will be circulated and, from now on, be used for all ASEANSAI activities.
- Participants further committed to share the templates and their learnings in Activity Management in their respective SAIs.
- Good practices, challenges and needs regarding communication in ASEANSAI were also discussed and through teambuilding and exchange of contact details a basis developed for participants to have easy access and entry points for reaching out to their peers in other SAIs in the future.
- Participants were given the chance to reflect on their own roles within ASEANSAI and formulate their expectations towards their colleagues.
- In an attempt to clarify roles and responsibilities, it became clear that each type of activity might need different distribution of tasks and responsibilities.
- Challenges in applying the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System of ASEANSAI were discussed and a number of next steps/ solutions developed. Four M&E tool templates (Participants’ Evaluation Sheet, Activity Assessment, Committee Report, Annual Report) were discussed in groups and amended in an attempt to make them easier to apply in the future and to be fed into the currently revised M&E Guidelines.