Given Hapunda

127 they do not understand what competence means or confuse it with work experience. Competence in M&E means holding skills, possessing knowledge and cultural competences required to conduct M&E activities (Hagens, 2008). The following procedures should be followed to ensure competence: 1. If you have no competence in M&E or a particular component of M&E, you should decline to participate in any M&E activity. Refer the task to experts or colleagues who have technical knowhow. In M&E, it is important to have a data base of consultants in different M&E activities, who should be asked to openly bid for the job. It also means employing highly skilled M&E staff and continue to train them in recent developments in the field of M&E for them to remain relevant. Experience alone is not enough, moreover you can have experience of the wrong practices. Reading literature on M&E can help improve skills of staff. 2. Do not undertake an M&E activity if stakeholders doubt your credibility due to your past work or publicly-stated views. If key stakeholders find fault with your work or position on related activities, they may discredit your approach or findings in future assignments (Hegans, 2008). Focus Box 3: Decline M&E Work outside your Skills Sometime back the second author received a call for consultant(s) to conduct an economic evaluation of an intervention in ministry X of Zambia. After reading the terms of reference, he felt the scope of work needed someone with economic or public administration background. He then replied to the sender that he couldn’t do it because the scope was outside his expertise. He received a reply showing disappointment, but he assured the caller that he would find more suitable people to do it. He took it to a colleague he felt would do it. The first words his colleague uttered were, “why are you not doing it?” He replied “because it is outside my expertise”. The colleague laughed and said “as long as you have a degree you can do all evaluations…” Unfortunately this is a common belief among consultants and job seekers. As a result, when we do such work our competences and skills are questioned.