What Is Monitoring and Evaluation?
When you read that the prevalence of low birth weight in a country is 20%, have you ever wondered how this calculation was derived?
Or when you hear that the percentage of married women of reproductive age in a rural area using a modern contraceptive method rose from 52% to 73%, do you wonder how they know this?
What Is Monitoring?
Monitoring of a program or intervention involves the collection of routine data that measure progress toward achieving program objectives. It is used to track changes in program performance over time. Its purpose is to permit stakeholders to make informed decisions regarding the effectiveness of programs and the efficient use of resources.
Monitoring is sometimes referred to as process evaluation because it focuses on the implementation process and asks key questions:
- How well has the program been implemented?
- How much does implementation vary from site to site?
- Did the program benefit the intended people? At what cost?
Examples of program elements that can be monitored:
- · Supply inventories
- · Number of vaccine doses administered monthly
- · Quality of service
- · Service coverage
- · Patient outcomes (changes in behavior, morbidity, etc.)
A graphic illustration of program monitoring over time could look like this. The program indicator being measured on the "Y" axis could be any element of the program that needs tracking, such as the cost of supplies, the number of times the staff provide certain information to clients, or the percentage of clients who are pleased with the services they received.
Monitoring usually pertains to counting, tracking, and collecting, for example:
- · Counting clients seen or health workers trained
- · Tracking condoms distributed
- · Collecting data on clinic clients
Monitoring:
- is an ongoing, continuous process;
- requires the collection of data at multiple points throughout the program cycle, including at the beginning to provide a baseline;
- can be used to determine if activities need adjustment during the intervention to improve desired outcomes.
What Is Evaluation?
Evaluation measures how well the program activities have met expected objectives and/or the extent to which changes in outcomes can be attributed to the program or intervention. The difference in the outcome of interest between having or not having the program or intervention is known as its "impact" and is commonly referred to as "impact evaluation".
Evaluation is fundamentally an exercise to help decision-makers understand how, and to what extent, a program is responsible for particular, measured results.
A graphic illustration of program impact would look like this.
Evaluations require:
- Data collection at the start of a program (to provide a baseline) and again at the end, rather than at repeated intervals during program implementation
- A control or comparison group in order to measure whether the changes in outcomes can be attributed to the program
- A well-planned study design
Check to see if you know whether the following situations call for "monitoring" or "evaluation."
- The National Council of Population and Development wants to know if the programs being carried out in province A are reducing unintended pregnancy among adolescents in that province.
- USAID wants to know how many sex workers have been reached by your program this year.
- A country director is interested in finding out if the postabortion care provided in public clinics meets national standards of quality.
Here are the answers:
- The National Council of Population and Development wants to know if the programs being carried out in province A are reducing unintended pregnancy among adolescents in that province.
This is evaluation because it is concerned with the impact of particular programs. - USAID wants to know how many sex workers have been reached by your program this year.
This is monitoring because it is concerned with counting the number of something (sex workers reached). - A country director is interested in finding out if the postabortion care provided in public clinics meets national standards of quality.
This is monitoring because it requires tracking something (quality of care).
Examples of questions that M&E can answer:
- · Was the program implemented as planned?
- · Did the target population benefit from the program and at what cost?
- · Can improved health outcomes be attributed to program efforts?
- · Which program activities were more effective and which less effective?
Monitoring and evaluation helps program implementers:
- Make informed decisions regarding program operations and service delivery based on objective evidence
- Ensure the most effective and efficient use of resources
- Objectively assess the extent to which the program is having or has had the desired impact, in what areas it is effective, and where corrections need to be considered
- Meet organizational reporting and other requirements, and convince donors that their investments have been worthwhile or that alternative approaches should be considered
M&E is a continuous process that occurs throughout the life of a program.
To be most effective, M&E should be planned at the design stage of a program, with the time, money, and personnel that will be required calculated and allocated in advance.
Monitoring should be conducted at every stage of the program, with data collected, analyzed, and used on a continuous basis.
Evaluations are usually conducted at the end of programs. However, they should be planned for at the start because they rely on data collected throughout the program, with baseline data being especially important.
Source: www.Globalhealthlearning.com a USAID funded online
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