Pacific Tourism Organisation hosts Procurement and MEL training

The Pacific Tourism Organisation hosted a one-day training for its staff on its procurement processes and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) framework.

For the MEL training, the objectives of the workshop were to:

• Provide an introduction to what monitoring, evaluating, and learning frameworks are.
• Raise awareness of the important role MEL plays in the planning and implementation phase of any project.
• Provide an introduction to Theory of Change and Logic Models
• To introduce the monitoring, evaluation, and learning toolkit.

General discussions and group presentations about indicators and the development of the indicator log during the workshop helped in gathering useful information that would aid in the fine-tuning of the MEL framework.

While in the second session the finance and procurement team facilitated the training to familiarise staff with the Procurement procedures and guidelines, developed under Phase 1 of the NZMFAT project.

SPTO CEO Christopher Cocker, was fully supportive of the opportunity for staff to better grasp the importance of both the MEL Framework and Procurement Policy.

“Understanding and adhering to MEL and Procurement guidelines is vitally important to the success of project activities. SPTO performed well in this regard under EDF10 and through these kinds of capacity-building workshops we intend to continue our strong performance with donor-funded projects and of course in relation to accountability, good governance, and transparency to donors and SPTO members ”, he said.

Participants were given opportunities to discuss and share their views from their respective departments to allow room for a more comprehensive outcome of the workshop.