71. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MOFED) has initiated a number of processes that will improve the collection and analysis of child-specific data and better inform responsive and appropriate policies and programmes for the delivery of services to marginalized families and children. 71.1 The Ministry of Finance has, with the support of the Office of the President and UNICEF, developed the Participatory Community Monitoring and Accountability Framework. It is a social audit framework designed to monitor access to and the utilisation of services, whilst raising awareness and bringing rights-holders and duty bearers together to discuss service delivery issues. It will be facilitated through a qualitative community score-card. Data will be collected based on the information in the score card. This will be used to track the devolved delivery of services and goods provided at national level and delivered down at local level; to assess whether services and goods are in fact reaching the targeted beneficiaries. In addition to the score cards, there will be focus group discussions with community stakeholders, including children’s and women’s groups to identify and address bottlenecks in access to services. The process was piloted in 2013 and there will be a concerted effort in 2014 for the necessary buy-in of partners to ensure national roll out of the programme. 71.2 For the first time in Sierra Leone’s development history, a results framework has been developed to accompany the 2013-2018 development plan. The last two plans were only supported by a policy matrix. The current plan is far more results-oriented and will be closely monitored and progress measured against stated indicators, outcomes and activities. Budgets will also be allocated based on plans aligned with results framework. Given that children feature prominently in all the pillars of the national development plan, they will feature in the results framework’s indicators, and measurement of progress towards national development objectives will implicitly measure national progress on key children’s outcomes. 71.3 In addition, the MoFED is currently developing a national M&E policy. The aim of the policy is to ensure better linkages across sectors in terms of planning and monitoring. It aims to address the current ad hoc approach to monitoring adopted by different sectors and to ensure the collection of adequate data to enable effective and appropriate planning. This will be achieved through standardised monitoring frameworks form national down to local level and roles and responsibilities will be defined and demarcated. The framework will be supported by a stronger and capacitated work force. There will be capacity building in all sectors. The World Bank has provided funds. Thus far, there has been a capacity assessment and an identification of capacity and resource gaps. The next phase will be to fill these gaps through training. Overall this initiative will ensure better alignment of sectoral strategic plans, including strategic plans for services for children, with the national development plan, it will build capacity in sectors like social development and unify the system. 26  Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone Initial Report on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 2002-2014