MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF PMM EFFORTS - WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED

One element of the operations research carried out by the Prevention o f Maternal Mortality (PMM) teams in West Africa was a test of the indi cators they used to monitor and evaluate their efforts. A small number of process indicators directly related to the PMM interventions in th e health facilities and in the communities was selected and monitored. An examination of the teams' experiences in gathering and using these indicators shows: (i) that they are extremely useful for project desi gn and management; (ii) that the necessary data are obtainable; (iii) that staff need training to gather, interpret and use the data; (iv) t hat monitoring and evaluation systems must be designed so that manager s will use the information; and (v) that data on the costs of interven tions can be tracked and are useful for evaluation and replication. (C ) 1997 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.