Monitoring and Evaluation is an exciting area of work because it is currently undergoing rapid changes.
Countries and organizations are increasingly taking innovative approaches to monitor and evaluate the performance of programmes, policies, services or organizations.
There are several reasons why this is happening.
‘RESULTS’ ARE HERE TO STAY
First, citizens, parliaments and donors are rightly demanding to know what results are being achieved with their money. Today, it has become unacceptable to simply report back on the number of people that were trained. Instead, Monitoring and Evaluation are challenged to provide meaningful information about real changes as the result of a policy, a programme or a service.
INCREASING COMPLEXITY AND SPEED
Second, we live in an increasingly complex and fast-changing environment. We need Monitoring and Evaluation that can capture complex causes and effects and provide quick, real-time feedback to tweak or change a programme, a policy or a service.
ACCELERATING TECHNOLOGY
Third, technology keeps accelerating at an increasing speed. This opens a wide range of opportunities for innovations in Monitoring and Evaluation. We are just only beginning to explore the opportunities of ‘big data’, the ubiquitous use of smartphones, the use of satellite images and drones.
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