Monitoring and evaluating your Smart City projects: the Practical Handbook you need!

How can you effectively monitor and evaluate your Smart City initiatives? Our 5th Practical Handbook shows you the way: discover a methodology to tackle this crucial step with serenity and build your indicators step by step!

 

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Have you set up one or more Smart City projects or are you about to launch some? Good news! But once they are up and running, there is no time to stop: what if you now take the time to monitor and evaluate these projects?

Every year, new initiatives for sustainable and intelligent transition flourish in our territories, with the aim of offering citizens real added value: improving their quality of life and the services intended for them. But how can we make sure that these projects actually meet these expected objectives? We tell you how to do it in our new Smart City Handbook! 

Monitoring and evaluation: a crucial step still underdeveloped

In February 2020, a study conducted on the evaluation of Smart City projects in Wallonia enabled our team to draw the following conclusion: While the majority of municipalities consider this evaluation and monitoring process to be useful/important, few of them actually use it (20%). This can be explained by the presence of various obstacles, including lack of time or human resources, but also lack of knowledge or tools to do so.

Purpose of this handbook and what it contains

In order to help cities and municipalities to overcome some of the obstacles mentioned above, our team is working on the development of publications on these issues. After the publication of two reports dedicated to the subject, a new Practical Handbook entirely dedicated to the monitoring and evaluation of your Smart City initiatives will be available from 15 September 2021 (in French). The aim is :

• To make territories aware of the added value of monitoring and evaluating Smart City initiatives
• To provide a knowledge base on the methods and practices of monitoring and evaluation to the latter.

This 5th volume, which revisits in depth the 4th phase of a successful Smart City strategy detailed in the 1st volume of the collection, contains : 

• A theoretical section dedicated to the concepts of monitoring and evaluation in the context of Smart Cities and their added value
• A reflection on the involvement of all stakeholders in this process
• A chapter on the essential steps and tools to define your monitoring and evaluation framework
• And finally, a presentation of existing frameworks and tools

Of course, this handbook also includes a checklist and a series of examples to help you turn your thoughts into a real monitoring and evaluation plan.

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Monitoring & evaluation: what is the difference? 

"Monitoring and evaluation are two intrinsically linked concepts. However, each process has distinct functions. Indeed, monitoring makes it possible to follow the development of an initiative and to identify potential deviations from its objective. Evaluation, on the other hand, allows for a more in-depth and nuanced analysis of the reasons for the success or failure of an action. Although different, these two concepts contribute to the effective functioning of initiatives by increasing their overall value and, ultimately, their impact.

In simplified terms, monitoring is a process of tracking the progress of an initiative by collecting and analysing data. In this way, it is possible to identify potential deviations and make the necessary adjustments. Evaluation, on the other hand, goes beyond monitoring and aims to provide a more in-depth and nuanced analysis." ^*

The added value: Why monitor and evaluate your Smart City projects?

In the context of Smart Cities, monitoring and evaluation are fundamental because they allow territories to explain the extent to which sustainable and intelligent initiatives can generate value for citizens, and therefore to legitimise them (there is no guarantee that all Smart City initiatives automatically improve the well-being of citizens).

These processes are good assets not only internally (better management, rationalisation and continuous improvement), but also externally (more transparency towards the citizen/stakeholders and increased ownership). Evaluation and monitoring should therefore be considered as real tools for the public manager in his decision making and implementation tasks!

Define your own monitoring and evaluation framework by downloading our Practical Handbook! 

Monitoring and evaluation: Management tools for our territories in transition

Replay of the webinar dedicated to the Practical Guide #5  - 15/09/21 (in French)

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