Enhancing the monitoring and evaluation of road construction projects using expert opinion: A case of Uganda national roads authority

Abstract

Road transport is among the sub-sectors that receive the highest funding in Uganda. Nevertheless, there has been a persistent public outcry on delays, low-quality deliveries, and even project failures in different parts of the country. Existing studies have attributed this to inefficient monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of road construction projects, which remains underexplored at the local scale. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to enhance the M&E of road construction projects in Uganda by establishing key factors of the exercise. Initial key M&E factors were identified through a literature review, and the Delphi technique was later employed to determine the experts’ levels of agreement towards these factors using measures of central tendency, such as mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation. The levels of consensus among experts were further confirmed by Kendall’s W, and the relative importance index finally revealed key M&E factors in road construction. The findings are crucial to support planning and decision-making across all stages of road construction projects in Uganda and the execution of targeted interventions in M&E exercises during project implementation. This study can be expanded in the future by focusing on the development of regression modelling, spatial modelling, and machine learning to predict the success and failure of M&E in road construction projects.