Monitoring and Evaluation

Development projects should be monitored and evaluated – the formality of this process and the effort put into it will depend on the size of the project and the lessons that can be learnt. For a standard, formal approach to M&E, there are a number of manuals, including those by Casley and Kumar (1987, 1988). Another approach is Participatory M&E. The two approaches are complimentary and can be combined.

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Participatory M&E References and Further Reading

Monitoring is about collecting information that will help answer questions about a project, usually about the way it is progressing towards its original goals, and how the objectives and approaches taken may need to be modified. It is important that this information is collected in a planned, organised and routine way. This information can be used to report on the project and to help in evaluation of progress.

Monitoring information is collected at specific times, for example daily, monthly or quarterly. At some point this information needs to be collated, brought together and analysed so that it can answer questions such as:

• How well are we doing?
• Are we doing the right things?
• What difference are we making?
• Does the approach need to be modified, and if so how?

At this point one is starting to evaluate. While monitoring is routine and ongoing, evaluation is an in-depth study, taking place at specific points in the life of the project.

Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation is a large and rapidly growing field. It can be defined as an "approach which involves local people, development agencies, and policy makers deciding together how progress should be measured, and results acted upon" (Guijt and Gaventa 1998). Some of its core principles are:

• participation in the design of the process, and in analysis
• negotiation on indicators, methods, use of information and subsequent action
• learning for subsequent improvement
• flexibility of the process

In practice, many of the visual techniques associated with PRA can be used fruitfully in PM&E.

Some of the major issues for PM&E are:

• designing a sustainable process
• reconciling different standards of the credibility of information
• scaling-up the use of PM&E into large organisations and programmes.

An important contribution on M&E specifically for livestock projects (derived from a smallstock project in Mexico) is Dorward et al. (2005).

Casley, D. and Kumar, K. (1987). Project Monitoring and Evaluation in Agriculture, Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank, Baltimore.

Casley, D. and Kumar, K. (1988). The Collection, Analysis and Use of Monitoring and Evaluation Data, Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank, Baltimore.

Dorward, A. Anderson, S., Nava, Y., Pattison, J., Paz, R., Rushton, J. and Sanchez Vera, E. (2005). A Guide to Indicators and Methods for Assessing the Contribution of Livestock Keeping to the Livelihoods of the Poor, Department of Agricultural Sciences, Imperial College London.

Guijt, I. (1999) Participatory monitoring and evaluation for natural resource management and research. Socio-economic Methodologies for Natural Resources Research. Chatham , UK : Natural Resources Institute.

Guijt, I and Gaventa, J. (1998). Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation: Learning From Change. IDS Policy Briefing Issue 12, Brighton, IDS.

IIED. (1998). PLA Notes 31: Special Issue on Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation London, IIED.

Swanson, B.E., Bentz, R.P. and Sofranko, A.J. (1997). Improving agricultural extension. A reference manual. Extension, Education and Communication Service, Research, Extension and Training Division, Sustainable Development Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.

Uphoff, N. A. (1989). Field Methodology for Participatory Self-Evaluation of People's Participation Programme (PPP) Group and Inter-group Association Performance People's Participation, FAO SD Dimensions, Rome, FAO.

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