Response monitoring and service quality monitoring

Clusters should regularly monitor and evaluate both progress in the response and quality of service delivery, and coordinate with AoRs which are accountable for ensuring monitoring and quality control of the services delivered by their own partners. Response monitoring focuses on tracking partners’ achievements against collective strategic priorities (typically through 5W data), as well as measuring available operational capacity and funding levels to support the response. It is essential to identify achievements, challenges, and shortcomings to determine necessary corrective actions, engage operational partners and define advocacy messages to donors and other key stakeholders not only for funding but also to seek solutions to address operational challenges affecting the effectiveness of the response, such as access issues. Monitoring the response regularly also allows Clusters to be ready for any crisis (see Core Function 5 on preparedness and contingency planning) and resulting Flash Appeals, CERF or other emergency strategic planning and funding mechanisms. Program quality monitoring focuses on ensuring that services are delivered in line with applicable standards and guidelines. It is essential to identify strong partners and best practices, ensure accountability to affected populations (AAP), provide technical support and advice to partners, and identify capacity building needs for partners. Clusters should thus strive to ensure regular quality monitoring through direct field visits of partners programs and services, or by coordinating peer-to-peer visits by leveraging operational partners capacity and expertise. To this end, it is essential to consider quality monitoring not as a policing or micro-managing tool, but rather as a way to support partners operational capacity, and to identify good practice to which the cluster can give visibility during cluster meetings and with donors.

Minimum requirements