5. Conclusion

Remote Management, Monitoring, and Verification (RMMV) of projects in international development cooperation have become an inte- gral part of project management—in fragile contexts and beyond. KfW’s RMMV approach to remote project management holds tremendous promise for helping project teams and entire organizations continue their work in the face of circumstances that make it difficult to visit project sites in person — such as dangers to personnel due to working in fragile and conflict-affected environments, travel to remote areas being too difficult or costly, or circumstances of worldwide impact that render travel impossible, like the COVID-19 pandemic or other emergencies.

Since the first internal study and toolkit on RMMV in 2018, KfW has made impressive progress in developing RMMV by establish- ing basic communication channels in conflict zones, through set- ting up simple Management Information Systems for managing multi-site emergency programs more effectively, up to using sensor networks and Building Information Modeling for complex infrastructure projects or financing forest protection based on the results provided by satellite monitoring systems. The use of Third-Party Monitoring has become more frequent and the role of KfW’s national experts in its country offices is being continuously strengthened. The pandemic has further accelerated the capacity development of KfW and its partners and stakeholders in RMMV. The project experience presented in section 4 is illustrating this development as well as the diversity of approaches, tools and data sources being used across all sectors.

Also, the use of RMMV has moved beyond fragile contexts and its tools and data sources are becoming crucial parts of KfW’s Digi- tal-by-Default strategy, particularly in projects covering large areas or multiple locations.

The information in the Guidebook was collected from a review of KfW project documents and studies as well as input from experi- enced KfW staff who use RMMV approaches in their daily work and from KfW technical, legal, contract and procurement experts, team leaders and sector economists.

KfW’s experience is complemented by inputs from consultancies on various RMMV aspects as well as interviews with partner gov- ernments and PEA staff, target groups representatives as well as other donors, UN, consultants, NGOs, RMMV service providers and other non-development actors that use RMMV approaches, such as private-sector organizations, and a body of literature and resources on RMMV. Although this Guidebook refers to KfW’s institutional setup and procedures, the principles in play are of course transferable to the business models of other development stakeholders.

KfW hopes that you find the information in this Guidebook useful as you carry out your own RMMV activities. This is a living docu- ment that we will be updating regularly, thus we welcome your feedback as you use the Guidebook so that we can continue to improve it and add information on new approaches, technical tool types and data sources as it becomes available.

In order to institutionalize the continuous improvements of the Guidebook and live the spirit of the Principle for Digital Develop- ment “Be Collaborative,” KfW is promoting the establishment of an international Community of Practice on RMMV to exchange experiences and lessons learned, and to share open source-based tools and open data sources. In addition to publishing RMMV- related information and collaborating with others in expanding international standards relevant to RMMV, KfW will be organizing and participating in international events on RMMV.

If you are interested in joining this Community of Practice or to provide your feedback on the RMMV Guidebook, please contact KfW directly at > info@kfw-entwicklungsbank.de (please mention “RMMV4Dev” in the subject).

This Guidebook is based on some key lessons learned from KfW’s RMMV experience:

• If possible, consider RMMV already in your project design. • It’s not about the technology, it’s about the information need! • It doesn’t need to be complicated to be effective. • Don’t forget the institutional approaches: capacities, roles and responsibilities of national and local actors need to be strengthened as part of the project design. • Involve target groups and project-affected people more systematically. RMMV may help in this endeavor. • The primary objective of RMMV is not saving costs, but making project management, monitoring and verification more effective and allowing project implementation under difficult circumstances. • In spite of all the approaches and tools offered by RMMV, some projects may remain unfeasible.