People across the country are demanding for better services from government and the public sector in order to improve and maintain their quality of life. Municipalities in Zimbabwe have a key and important role to play in improving and changing people’s lives through provision of safe water for domestic use, good sanitation infrastructure and proper disposal of waste. The need to institutionalize M&E systems in municipalities across the country in order to enhance their performance is highly recognized. The introduction of a comprehensive M&E system will help the municipality to improve its service delivery through the use of evidence-based practices. The paper seeks to examine the challenges faced by municipalities in institutionalizing M&E systems in Zimbabwe using Chegutu municipality as a case study. Purposive sampling technique was used in the selection of the respondents. A total of 82 participants provided their views and opinions on the challenges being faced by Chegutu municipality in institutionalizing the M&E system. The study also made use of interviews to senior management and some shop floor workers and the interviews allowed the observation of non-verbal cues which were basically important during data analysis stage. The results show that Chegutu municipality is providing compromised services to the public as a result of a weaker M&E system. The challenges being experienced by Chegutu municipality which are impacting the process of institutionalizing the M&E system are M&E not viewed as a priority by senior management, no legislative and regulatory framework for M&E, inadequate human resource or people trained in M&E and lack of resources or funding for M&E and these challenges are hampering successful implementation of M&E in the municipality. Numerous recommendations were made to Chegutu municipality as steps to take for proper institutionalization of M&E in the organization.

The majority of African countries rely on donors to fund, to design and establish M&E systems in government and the public sector. These donors also fund and support efforts of many NGOs in Africa and the world over in strengthening their M&E systems and capacities.  Literature has shown that majority of NGOs conduct M&E systems as part of meeting one of the grant conditions they signed with the donor. The M&E system is expected to generate information that is consumed by program managers in informing decisions, promoting program performance and being accountable to the donor, key stakeholders and project beneficiaries. This study seeks to examine the factors that influence the performance of the M&E systems in NGOs in Chegutu district of Zimbabwe. The study used purposive sampling techniques and selected a total of 74 respondents.  In purposive sampling, the respondents are selected based on their contribution towards the study and their potential to add valuable information. The study also used interviews to program staff and M&E officers and the interviews helped in the observation of non-verbal expressions which were crucial at data analysis stage. The results show that the majority of NGOs have invested and established functional M&E systems. The M&E systems provides quality M&E data, utilized logical frameworks for planning, utilization of the M&E information in decision making, provision of incentives and resource allocation for M&E activities.  Lastly, the study recommended that NGOs should ensure use of evaluation findings, use of qualitative indicators, conducting of routine data audits, promotion of organizational learning, stakeholder participation, training of program staff in M&E and allocation of an adequate budget for M&E activities.