DECI DREAM- IT, June 11, 2009

1. Development Research to Empower All Mongolians
through Information and Communications
Technology
DECI workshop
Penang, Malaysia
11 June, 2009

2. Outline of the presentation
• Brief introduction to DREAM IT project
• DREAM IT’s monitoring & evaluation
framework
• Expected benefits from DECI
DREAM IT project 2

3. What is the DREAM IT project?
DREAM IT is a program of projects, which has been developed
to address policy, infrastructure, development, innovation,
capacity building and other challenges faced by the country’s
ICT sector as it deploys ICT-based activities and initiatives.
The project is designed to develop the capacities of researchers
and research managers to achieve their stated proposal
objectives, as well as to strengthen strategic linkages and
knowledge sharing opportunities among the projects.
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4. DREAM IT project 4

5. Research questions:
1. What are the strategies and processes needed to allow
research findings from the project to influence the policy-
making process?
2. What is the role of ICTs in achieving socio-economic outcomes
that are sought by the development sectors (e.g., health,
education, governance)?
3. In the Mongolian context, what specific technologies and
systems would be appropriate to achieve developmental
effects in the sectors of health, education, governance,
environment, etc.?
4. How is the success of an ICT4D project defined? And how do
we ensure that learning about success and failure is
transferred and integrated for future ICT programming in the
country?
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6. Two levels:
 Umbrella level:
- Coordination
- Cooperation
- Networking
- Research management
- Capacity building
- Monitoring and evaluation
- Communicating for policy/practice influence
 Sub-project level:
- Sector-specific ICT problems and issues (health, education,
government, environment and etc.)
- Gaps in ICT research and development in these sectors
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7. Project team:
 Umbrella level
Project Board: (i) CEO of Datacom, (ii) Project Director, (iii)
Project Leader (iv) Project Administrator (v) 3 Board members.
 Sub-project level
Six sub-projects involves:
- 30 researchers
- 9 ICT consultants (2 international consultants)
- 18 sector-specific consultants (psychological counsellor
statisticians, economists, lawyer, teachers, business analysts)
- 10 technical staff (software developers, architects webmaster)
- 18 support staff (data encoding and inputting, research
assistants)
7
DREAM IT project

8. Sub-projects:
 Online psychological service for health professionals - Health
Sciences University of Mongolia (January 2009 – June 2010)
 Blended Technology Education Project (BTEP): Using
Technology to Level the Education Playing Field in Mongolia –
Education channel TV (January 2009 – December 2009)
3) Curriculum development of University Computing and ICT
Education in Mongolia - National University of Mongolia
(January 2009 – December 2010)
 GES Information System to motivate reliable business relation
for Gobi eco-system – JEMR Co. Ltd. (January 2009 –
December 2009)
5) Improving the Responsiveness and Efficiency of Public
Sector’s Information Services Provision in Mongolia - Cabinet
Secretariat of the Government of Mongolia (January 2009 –
December 2009)
 Engaging citizen participation in the Parliamentary legislative
process - Secretariat of the Parliament of Mongolia (January
2009 – December 2009)

9. Training programs:
◦ Project management and Financial administration (22-23 April,
2009)
◦ Social science research methods (26-30 May, 2009)
◦ Online collaboration tool (dotProject) and Web 2.0 technologies (5
June, 2009)
◦ Communications for influence on policy and practice
◦ Research writing and publication
◦ Evaluation methods
 Utilization focus evaluation (UFE)
 Outcome mapping (OM)
 Gender analysis (GEM)
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10. Current phase:
First six months:
 The project is kicked off and into its sixth month.
 Three training workshops held.
 Sub-projects submitted inception reports. Q2 technical reports to
be submitted.
 Research design of sub-projects revised. Literature review and
baseline study.
 The project portal www.dreamit.mn is launched.
 Online collaboration tool dotProject is used.
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11. Current phase cont...
Next six months:
 Call for New Proposal abstracts and selection of new sub-
projects.
 Case study and best practices study/contest.
 National seminar and official launch of the project for public and
media.
 Monitoring and Evaluation plan.
 Three more training workshops.

12. Monitoring & evaluation framework
 Themes:
The project umbrella will monitor the subprojects based on the
three pillars of “policy”, “technology” and “effects”.
Cross-cutting themes (such as gender equity, environmental
stewardship) will be included in monitoring and evaluating these
three pillars.
 Indicators:
Project monitoring indicators will measure how well or badly a
project is being run:
- Inputs or resources used
- Outputs or results achieved
- Impacts on a selected population
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13. Monitoring & evaluation framework cont…
Data sources and monitoring strategies:
The project umbrella will tap three sources of data or use three
monitoring strategies:
 Review of subproject documents, including the beneficiary/client
profiles from the baseline data, work plans, progress and activity
reports, monitoring sheets or formats
 Individual or group interviews and/or personal communication
with subproject team leaders, field implementers and advisers,
and individual or group interviews with a sample of beneficiaries
 Direct observation, by attending or participating in project
activities

14. Monitoring & evaluation framework cont…
 Utilization of the monitoring data:
◦ It will offer useful data to the IDRC/PAN Asia, Project Board,
subproject implementers, and the beneficiary/client population
◦ It will help gauge the level of commitment of the team to the
goals of the Project and to social development
◦ It will also measure the efficiency of the use of resources in
terms of project goals
◦ Assess the progress of the projects and the problems and
challenges facing the project.

15. What benefits we are expecting from DECI?
 Revise current evaluation plan and improve it with assistance
of DECI according to U-FE scheme
 Help answer our priority evaluation questions both at
umbrella and subproject levels:
◦ “Are we getting the expected results?”
◦ “What should be improved, how?”,
◦ “What decisions need to be made?”
◦ “What are other applicable uses (beyond DREAM IT) of our
evaluation results? etc.,
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16. What benefits we are expecting from DECI?
 Identify and undertake improvement steps to Umbrella
program and as well as subprojects in terms of:
◦ PAN’s three pillar (policies, technologies and effects)
◦ Project research question(s) and objective(s)
◦ Capacity building for researchers
◦ Results disseminations (facilitation for use) and policy
influence
◦ Outputs and expected outcomes
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17. Thanks for your attention
Any questions?
DREAM IT Mega Mongolia project:
Z. Batbold, Project leader
batbold@npi.mn
B. Batpurev, Board member
batpurev@gmail.com
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