A part of my role in Somalia is to look at M&E, either through joint initiatives or internally, within the programmes and the emergency assistance that Concern is providing.
So this is a very simplified definition of M&E that I will expand upon in the future (you will notice that M&E draws on many of the principles of programme, risk, capacity, etc that are described in other parts of this blog)...
Monitoring is Performance Management and should provide sufficient information support decision-making that allows you to continue as planned or make changes, on an on-going basis, to activities that contribute to the achievement of the objectives/outcomes.
•The progress made on agreed activities
•The impact of risks that have materialised on Progress (activities) and Purpose (objectives/outcomes)
•The impact of assumptions that were incorrect on Progress (activities) and Purpose (objectives/outcomes)
Evaluation is Impact Assessment & Lesson Learning - that is to say, did we achieve what we set out to achieve and how did we do it. This is measured in two phases:
1.Did we do what we said we would do (meet the objectives/outcomes)
2.Did we meet the expectations of the various stakeholders (the Goal)
Evaluation is always a "point in time" assessment and so, itself will have assumptions ("our conclusion is based on..."). The opportunity for continuous improvement is to capture practical lessons that can be applied to Performance Management (decision-making & resource optimisation) for the future.
Resources: activities use resources, so performance management is resource optimisation. There are only three resources that are affected by decision-making:
1.Time: the number of people that you have, their skills, experience and ability to complete the activities
2.Things: the tangible things that are available to you to help you complete the activities
3.Money: the flexibility to buy either more time (1) or more things (2) that will help you complete the activities.
A RISK is a definable, describable but unknowable event that we presume will happen ("there is a risk of rain…"). As a result a risk requires additional resources/activities to mitigate its impact (umbrella, raincoat, sandbags, etc.)
An ASSUMPTION is a definable, describable but unknowable event that we presume will not happen ("we assume it will not rain..."). No additional resources are set aside - but the assumption must be monitored in case it is wrong.
Footnote: I am currently working on developing "Theories of change" for humanitarian and resilinece-based programmes. An important definition that I draw upon is for Strength (as in SWOT): Strength – is a tangible resource (time, things, money) that you can leverage to directly achieve your objective (strength-to-opportunity) or; influence the achievement of the objective by using those tangible resources to overcome a weakness or threat
