Following the preparation of a M&E system to assist SWIM Partner Countries in assessing, initiating and/or improving the decentralization of irrigation management responsibilities to Water Users Associations, SWIM-SM is now preparing to test the applicability of the system in Jordan and Tunisia, the two countries who have expressed a keen interest in this process.

To this purpose, several focused meetings will be organized between February and April 2014 with relevant stakeholders to achieve the following:

• Customize the regional M&E system to suit the national^[1]and local conditions in the pilot areas by selecting appropriate qualitative and quantitative indicators and identifying the availability of data to calculate the indicators as well as the providers of these data;

• Based on the above, prepare a monitoring plan including a road map for the application of the system in the pilot areas;

• Communicate the monitoring plan to the relevant focal pointswho will closely supervise the pilot implementationfor review and feedback and to the M&E system developer to customise the system and the users’ manual  as applicable;

• Install the system in the pilot areas and in-house training of users.

• Apply the system in the two pilot areas (and at the national level if desired by the government);

• Follow up the implementation with the partners to document approach and lessons learnt to extract those elements that can be replicated within the same and/or in other countries;

• Conduct in each pilot area, a self-evaluation workshop involving the stakeholders with the objective to (a) analyse the monitoring and evaluation results, (b) identify any recommendations for system refinement and (c) evaluate the pilot implementation. The workshops are envisaged to be held during the months of August and September 2014.

At the end of the pilot implementation phase a Regional meeting will be organised to present the system to the PCs and to regional organisations involved in WUAs formation and support and to disseminate the findings and lessons learnt.