Reporting means to provide information able to make stakeholders understand how the project is developing or how the project achieved its targets. You will be asked to write several reports. For instance, financial reports, narrative reports and closeout report. Regardless of the typology of the report, there are certain qualities that a report should possess.
1) Clarity. The report is a short document able to inform the reader about main points of interest. It is difficult to summarise the entire development of the project in a closeout report because you have to make selections among the available information. As a rule, keep in mind that your goal is to present how your project was successful – select your information accordingly.
2) Structure. Reports must have a clear structure that you will use as a template. For instance, each report must clarify what is the timeframe; from when to when are you reporting on the project’s activities/achievements/etc.? Reports should clearly identify the targets set for the specific timeframe and demonstrate how said targets were achieved or not. In the case of something not going as planned, reports should provide clear information for the reader to understand what happened and how the implementing organisation dealt with the problem.
3) Lessons Learnt. A good report, especially the final report, has a section dedicated to a critical assessment of the project as a whole. This part is important because it states what the organisation learnt and also it communicates to the donor ways in which further projects could be developed by drawing on what has been learnt.
