Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is one of the most important parts of Urmia Lake Restoration National Plan. Monitoring of the restoration projects progress, monitoring of other projects being defined and implemented in the basin, milestones definitions and regular monitoring, key performance indicator definition and evaluation of them, prioritizing the projects and updating the action plan based on the projects’ effectiveness are parts of the M&E plan. Having an integrated approach in implementation of various restoration measures is of particular importance. For the reason that the projects usually complement each other to achieve the goal which is increasing the Lake level. Moreover, in some cases, non-uniform distribution of implementing the projects or unbalanced projects progress may even aggravate the Lake condition. Therefore, in order to increase the projects effectiveness, they should be implemented through the project portfolio management process.

One of the most important policies that ULRP has been taken is using the local capacities in project monitoring process such as collecting the required data and information in cooperation with the provincial executive agencies, preparing various monitoring reports, having field visits and reviewing and confirming the claims on the project progress. In this regard, ULRP used the provincial sub-offices as well as scientific and technical capacities of Urmia University and University of Tabriz located in Urmia Lake Basin. In addition, monitoring of the project control systems and training specialized human resources of the executive agencies collaborating with ULRP is another important part of the M&E plan. In this regard, several meetings have been held with the experts and managers of the organizations such as Iran Water & Power Resources Development Company (IWPCO), Modern Irrigation System of Iran Water Resources Management Company and National Water & Wastewater Engineering Company.

Ab va Mohitzist Paydar Sharif (ABOPA) Consulting Engineers Company on behalf of Planning and Resource Mobilization Unit (PRMU) of ULRP, has been tasked with implementing the project entitled “Monitoring and Evaluation Management in Urmia Lake Restoration National Plan”.