Managing for Impact: Let’s talk about MandE!

  We were on Day 5 of discussing and designing a participatory M&E system…with lots of positive feedback on this “new way of doing things”. Many individuals had come up to us, or said in plenary how excited they were to be involved in designing a system where the information would help the farmer, the researcher, the extension officer in making their own decisions. 

In the managing for impact approach; we recognize that it’s important to identify up-front what incentives need to be put in place to motivate people to get actively involved in M&E. 

So - we asked individuals to put on cards what incentives they thought would be important for them. Once they’d done so - we turned over blank flip charts with titles of different types of incentives; and asked everyone to walk around and place their cards where they thought they best fitted:

• Financial
• Material (new equipment etc)
• Clear link to decision making
• Recognition (e.g. being invited to give a presentation, or a pat on the back..)
• Clear roles & responsibilities for M&E
• Opportunities for training/skill-building
• Others

So, until we find ways to restore faith and belief in aid projects - that …with a little hard work & integrity…they can make a positive difference to people’s lives ..they can put a dent in this endless cycle of “poverty”…

Until we can find ways to restore faith & belief in M&E systems …that the information collected will really be used to help people make better decisions about their own lives - and influence the decisions of others…. I’m afraid “posho” will continue to be the stronger motivator!! 

Since my post on “Logic beyond the Logical framework“, we’ve now almost finished consolidating the work of the 4 different groups and putting it altogether into one MandE matrix.

The first step was bringing together the theories of change as viewed by the different stakeholder groups into one Programme theory. This is what it looked like (different colors represent changes related to different stakeholder groups and the arrows illustrate linkages/relationships between changes - both within stakeholder groups and between them).

From this - the Prog. was then also able to revise their logframe by clustering the outputs, outcomes (changes in behavior) and overall impacts from the diagram - which feed into the first column of the logframe. The items in red are internal/external factors that may influence the success of this theory. These feed into the 4th column of the logframe (risks/assumptions). However, they are also used to identify ways in which to strengthen the logic and reduce the probability of the risks (the green boxes are recommendations for changes to the theory). **Remember - this wasn’t a planning workshop ..if it was - we would have started from the top (impacts) and worked our way down. Instead, we were simply trying to ensure that everyone had a clear understanding of the strategy already designed and, if necessary, identify areas in which it needed to be strengthened. 

As I mentioned before - we also used this to develop the M&E matrix. Each step in the theory of change needs to be monitored, as does the relationships between them as well as the internal/external factors.  So - when thinking about information required for performance questions such as “To what extent were the intended impacts contributed to, why, why not?” - the programme stakeholders referred to the theory of change they mapped out (e.g. changes in % of income originating from sales of agricultural products in households participating directly in the Prog.). This part of the M&E matrix looks something like this: 

The next step is to think through & plan for actual data collection. At impact level, it was felt that the data/information should be collected through both participatory impact assessments & externally conducted impact assessments. Here’s an example of the part of the matrix that relates to this: 

Last, but far from least,  will be information use - defining and planning for the forums & other mechanisms that will be put in place in order to enable critical reflection on and the use of the data/information collected for decision making. 

For months, no years (!) I’ve been looking for a good software that would help in documenting electronically the theories of change that are put together in planning & MandE workshops. I can’t afford the high end software that’s out there (SmartDraw/ConceptDraw/Visio amongst others) so I’ve been using Excel - which is a little cumbersome, but ok. 

Then, yesterday, I came across Concept Mapping which I found on another bloggers site. I find the thinking behind it extremely useful and insightful in my work and the software a drea

m come true (& it’s free!)! I highly recommend to anyone wanting to map out Programme strategies etc.!  

Many many thanks to the blogger at http://pkab.wordpress.com/about/!