UPDATED 16 March 2021
The development community often strongly focuses on results, which monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes can confirm and support. However, effective M&E processes may be expensive and resource heavy. They do not have to be.
M&E is important for at least two audiences: the funder and the program team. Social and behavior change (SBC) programs must often fulfill donor evaluation requirements to provide evidence of effective use of funds. Programs also want to see those results for their own programming purposes to understand both what works and where shifts should be made.
In some settings, an in-house M&E team is not a viable option, and programs may have few funds available for hiring external firms or consultants. However, programs still need to be responsive to data and show impact. SBC programs must be able to identify and use low-cost M&E alternatives to meet those needs.
To this end, we have compiled a list of resources and project examples on conducting M&E at low-cost. We invite our users to add their own resources to the Compass.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
