Monitoring, Operations Research and Evaluation for Adaptive Programmes (MORE-AP)

  Use This Information The Way You Want In the labyrinthine world of service organizations and NGOs, there lies a dormant titan. This titan, often overshadowed by the immediacy of action, holds the power to revolutionize the very essence of an organization’s functioning. This titan is none other than the process of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) . Awakening the Titan The first step towards institutionalizing evidence uptake in service organizations and NGOs is to awaken this titan. It begins with a simple, yet profound realization - data is not just numbers, it’s a narrative . Every data point, every metric, every KPI, tells a story about the organization, its people, its processes, its impact, and its beneficiaries. It’s about understanding that these narratives are the lifeblood of effective service delivery and advocacy work. The Dance of Data Once awakened, the titan begins its dance. A dance that is as intricate as it is beautiful. This is where monito

  Once you have a program or project, we assume everything that needs to be done is clear and clear to everyone.   However, there is always no dull moment for Monitoring and Evaluation nerds. You have all those figures in the project document and your job is to make sure everyone knows the best way to get those figures or to get to them (achieve them).   That is target setting. For the sake of this blog, I keep monitoring and evaluation together, mainly because it is usually the same individual or team responsible for both roles. Indicators are what drives monitoring. But targets will decide how monitoring will be done, how results will be interpreted, and how success will be celebrated. But it is worth knowing wrong targets may point to issues related to limited understanding of the intervention the target beneficiaries. We have all been in a place where our tasks included everyone asking you to set targets every year. And they even emphasize, targets that are ambitious and re

This Nigerian proverb  is an excellent explanation that to achieve desired process, you need to factor in the dosage. I was made to believe that Dosage = dose x time +/- other factors. But treatment outcomes may not appear because the dose has been completed. There are other factors that must come into play such as underlying conditions, nutrition,  etcetera.      Back to the case of the famer and the goat.  The assessment showed that fat goats could easily be sold or sold at a better price because it was what everyone wants to buy. Also the assessment by the famer showed that the goat was not fat. This is what needs assessment and context analysis does. It clears the ground for expected results to be clarified and a plan to achieve them developed.   we will assuming the farmer knows  what makes a goat fat, the goat likes it and actually eats enough, ......  However, being already a market day, the farmer was faced with a dilemma of  getting a lowest price or not selling at all. But al