M&E as a learning tool

By Marianne Meier (SAD), Valeria Kunz (SAD), Aparna Nayampalli (MamaCash), Heather Cameron, (Box Girls/Nike Consultant), Veerle Kets (King Boudewijn Foundation).

Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) is perceived as a burden by many grassroots organisations. There is often a lack of motivation, and/or capacity (time) and/or know-how and/or funds. Due to the fact that M&E requests are often basically donor-driven, most reports mainly contain only positive results and rarely failures or difficulties. In addition, different theories and standards of M&E of different stakeholders create confusion among grassroots organisations. These

factors commonly reduce the quality of collected data to the disadvantage of all stakeholders, but most of all at the expense of the target groups, because project improvements remain.

The workshop on M&E raised awareness that M&E is not an imposed control instrument by the donor or an optional accessory ("nice to have") of any project. To summarise, M&E can be used for three reasons:

• Steering: steering and adjusting current programmes and projects.
• Learning: learning more about what works and what does not.
• Monitoring: accounting for the resources used in the light of objectives formulated in advance and results achieved.

M&E should be a constitutive part of every project design ("must be"), a dialogue on development and its progress between all stakeholders and a participatory and creative approach of measuring change (ownership). Grassroots organisations as well as donors were encouraged to broaden their understanding of traditional M&E, thus becoming a real learning tool, which is on the one hand more motivating for the staff, and on the other hand cost-effective. During the workshop participants gained understanding of M&E as a dynamic, participatory approach and broadened their perspective on M&E. Presentations of case studies and experiences of participants illustrated how M&E can help to improve the performance of  organisations.

More info

• Full report on monitoring and evaluation (pdf)
• Presentation about monitoring and evaluation by Marianne Meier (SAD), Valeria Kunz (SAD), Aparna Nayampalli (MamaCash), Heather Cameron, (Box Girls/Nike Consultant), Veerle Kets (King Boudewijn Foundation) (power point, pdf)
• Example of a creative M&E tool: Problem tree, a participatory rural appraisal technique used in planning (pdf)
• Example of a creative M&E tool: Poetry (pdf)
• More info on M&E: go to www.toolkitsportdevelopment.org

Marianne Meijer (SAD)