Monitoring & Evaluation

We help you understand what is going on beneath the surface

A woman voicing her opinion in a cooperative meeting

To navigate continuous changes in your working environment, you need a good compass, a functional map, and a vigilant crew able to adjust course in due time to reach your objective. We can help you prepare for this journey.

Based on your needs, we can craft full-fledged M&E frameworks or targeted tools and processes for systematic data collection, sense-making, and documentation that support your project management.

We pay special attention to the people who implement your M&E process and the context dynamics in which they work. We want your M&E system to be lean, fit for purpose and a stepping stone for personal and organisational learning.

Our offer

  1. Design of indicator frameworks and integral M&E systems (processes and tools) for lean and goal-oriented project or organizational management.
  2. Facilitation of strategic reflection processes, theory of change workshops, planning and forecasting meetings, making sense of data, complexity analysis of VUCA environments, mindfulness and meditation at the workplace, …
  3. Efficiency analyses using Social Return on Investment (SROI) to capture the wider social and environmental benefits of your work and Multi-Criteria Efficiency Analysis (MCEA) to compare the relative effectiveness and efficiency of the interventions that make up your project.
  4. Innovative data collection using SenseMaker™ to quantify qualitative dimensions of your work and make voices of people heard, either for on-going monitoring or evaluation of your project or to improve project design, tailoring existing Rikolto frameworks such as the Inclusive Business Scan or the Youth in Agriculture Scan, or custom-designing new frameworks for your specific use.
  5. Linking multiple data sources (e.g. Excel, KoBo Toolbox, Salesforce, GIS, satellite imagery, …) in user-friendly and interactive dashboards to support live on-the-ground monitoring and data-driven decision-making.

Our approach: sense, craft, organise

Sense

Combining complexity analysis with creative and non-verbal group facilitation, we come to a shared understanding of the heart of your challenge in relation to your organisation and work context.

Craft

Set up a lean yet robust monitoring and evaluation framework  to keep track of progress at critical junctures of your intervention and to learn about your strategy’s results.

Organise

Embed your M&E framework in relevant project management practices with a clear division of roles and responsibilities to match your organisational dynamics.

1. Sense

Combining complexity analysis with creative and non-verbal group facilitation, we come to a shared understanding of the heart of your challenge in relation to your organisation and work context.

  • Listen to your needs and understand the stakes at play.
  • Capture the diversity of change dynamics, actors, power relations, and perspectives.
  • Descend into the underlying patterns and mental structures that frame your reality.
  • Envision a solution that is embedded in the dynamics of your work context.

2. Craft

Set up a lean yet robust monitoring and evaluation framework to keep track of progress at critical junctures of your intervention and to learn about your strategy’s results.

  • Visualise assumptions and strategies through pathways of change, mind maps, system diagrams, ...
  • Identify indicators that give you a sense of direction without getting lost in endless data collection.
  • Strike the balance between capturing numbers and grasping the dynamics behind them.
  • Recognise black holes and embrace them through your monitoring practices.

3. Organise

Embed your M&E framework in relevant project management practices with a clear division of roles and responsibilities to match your organisational dynamics.

  • Elaborate project management dashboards with information needs and expected outputs.
  • Align key rhythms and spaces for project management.
  • Clarify the roles and responsibilities of all colleagues with regards to project management and data collection.
  • Articulate the triggers that steer your action in unexpected situations.

The principles that guide our M&E-work

  1. Useful: the M&E system needs to be useful for the project actors who produce and use the information.
  2. Multi-faceted: the M&E system acknowledges that different project levels require different data and information.
  3. Realistic & pragmatic: the M&E system and procedures should be realistic, effective, cost-effective, pragmatic, and as simple as possible.
  4. Digital & efficient: the data collection process shall leverage as much as possible existing data collection practices and digital data sources in order to reduce the burden of data collection. Where possible, the M&E system shall promote the use of open-source digital solutions.
  5. Feedback-oriented: the M&E system should allow the implementing organisation and its partners to seek feedback on their interventions and performance, while at the same time committing themselves to provide feedback to key stakeholders and beneficiaries (two-way & downward accountability).
  6. Systematic: the M&E system should identify meaningful periodicity for systematic documentation of progress to support both accountability and transparency of the work carried out, to support the internal and external communication strategy.
  7. Participatory: by involving the key stakeholders and partners in implementing the monitoring processes, M&E processes are useful for the programmes rather than an additional burden. They foster self-assessment and face-to-face interaction to clarify what is happening on the ground.
  8. Learning-oriented: the M&E process aims to generate insights, support learning, plan and motivate future activities, and build M&E capacity and reflective thinking among the different people involved.

Our track record

Recently, we have developed the M&E framework for a multi-country Regional Rice Value Chain Project financed by the Islamic Development Bank and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa. We are currently delivering M&E trainings to the Project Management Units of the project.

The Inclusive Business Scan

Rikolto has developed the Inclusive Business Scan as a tool to capture the voice of producers, producer organisations and companies. The Inclusive Business Scan, powered by Sensemaker™, allows you to guide future actions and interventions in the commodity chains. The insights you gain from the Inclusive Business Scan can support you in your role as chain actor and improve value chain interventions.

Read more about the methodology

Questions? Don’t hesitate to mail me.

Prima Interpares

Monitoring & Evaluation
prima.interpares@rikolto.org