As Nepal’s federal system matures, provincial governments are increasingly responsible for delivering development results. In Madhesh Province, this shift brought a critical challenge: while projects were being implemented across sectors, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) remained fragmented, procedural, and largely activity-focused.

Without a formal legal and institutional framework, monitoring was often treated as a reporting requirement rather than a decision-making and accountability function. This limited the province’s ability to:

• Track whether development interventions were delivering intended outcomes
• Address local implementation challenges in a timely and systematic way

Most importantly, the absence of a structured M&E system meant that oversight remained distant from citizens, with limited involvement of elected representatives at the constituency level.