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Calls for more ‘adaptive programming’ have been prominent in international development practice for over a decade. Learning-by-doing is a crucial element of this, but programmes have often found it challenging to become more learning oriented. Establishing some form of reflective practice, against countervailing incentives, is difficult. Incorporating data collection processes that generate useful, timely and practical information to inform these reflections is even more so.This paper...

In the CEDIL Methods brief, ‘Evaluating complex interventions: What are appropriate methods?’ we identify four types of complex development interventions: long causal chain interventions, multicomponent interventions, portfolio interventions, and system-level interventions. These interventions are characterised by multiple activities, multiple outcomes, multiple components, a high level of interconnectedness, and non-linear outcomes.

This landscape review on measuring and monitoring adaptive learning highlights the learning from five adaptive programming guidelines and toolkits and one implementation science framework to inform the monitoring and evaluation of adaptive learning. The introduction of adaptive learning processes and skillsets in global health programming is part of an emerging strategy to advance a learning culture within projects and teams to improve health program performance. The monitoring and...

Inclusive and rigorous peacebuilding evaluation is both vital and complex. In this blog we share examples of how we are innovating our methodologies to move towards participatory and adaptive practice.

A critical appraisal's of CEDIL papers on Evaluating Complex Interventions... A study was recently published by the Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning (CEDIL) entitled Evaluating complex interventions in international development. This is the sort of title that raises great expectations. Complexity is a hugely popular theme and many of us are keen to know more about how to evaluate efforts that seek to achieve results amid complexity. In April 2021, CEDIL conducted a...

This article explores the challenges of monitoring and evaluating politically informed and adaptive programmes in the international development field. We assess the strengths and weaknesses of some specific evaluation methodologies which have been suggested as particularly appropriate for these kinds of programmes based on scholarly literature and the practical experience of the authors in using them. We suggest that those methods which assume generative causality are particularly well...

Traditional monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) approaches, methods, and tools no longer reflect the dynamic complexity of the severe (or “super-wicked”) problems that define the Anthropocene: climate change, environmental degradation, and global pandemics. In late 2019, the Adaptation Fund’s Technical Evaluation Reference Group (AF-TERG) commissioned a study to identify and assess innovative MEL approaches, methods, and technologies to better support and enable climate change...

Issues of power are not new to program evaluation. What is new is a consideration of how programming uses insights into incentives that shape and adapt implementation. How should one evaluate in a way that explicitly assesses the ways in which a program considers power? One of the innovative topics deriving from the democracy and governance space is the approach of thinking and working politically (TWP) which is seeing increased use in development programming. TWP suggests different mental...

Evaluators who take a complexity-aware approach must consider tradeoffs related to theoretical parsimony, falsifiability, and measurement validity. These tradeoffs may be particularly pronounced with ex-post evaluation designs in which program theory development and monitoring frameworks are often completed before the evaluator is engaged. In this chapter, we argue that theory-based evaluation (TBE) approaches can address unique ex-post evaluation challenges that complexity-aware evaluation...

This chapter examines good practices in implementing effective Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) systems within complex international development Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) programs, which are characterized by challenges of non-linearity, limited evidence of theories of change, and contextual and politically contingent nature of outcomes. The chapter presents three cases of MEL systems in complex projects implemented by Pact across distinct and diverse operating...

This paper reviews promising methods for the evaluation of complex interventions that are new or have been used in a limited way. It offers a taxonomy of complex interventions in international development and draws on literature to discuss several methods that can be used to evaluate these interventions. Complex interventions are those that are characterised by multiple components, multiple stakeholders, or multiple target populations. They may also be interventions that incorporate...

Background: Addressing today’s sustainability challenges requires adopting a systemic approach where social and ecological systems are treated as integrated social-ecological systems. Such systems are complex, and the international development sector increasingly recognises the need to account for the complexity of the systems that they seek to transform. Purpose: This paper sketches out the elements of a complexity-aware monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for international...

Relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability are widely used evaluation criteria, particularly in international development co-operation. They help to determine the merit or worth of various interventions, such as strategies, policies, programmes or projects. This guidance aims to help evaluators and others to better understand those criteria, and improve their use. It starts by describing what they are, and how they are meant to be used. Then the definitions...

Development strategies, programmes and projects are designed making assumptions concerning several variables such as future prices of outputs and inputs, exchange rates and productivity growth. However, knowledge about the future is limited. Uncertainty prevails. The usual approach to deal with uncertainty is to reduce it to risk. Uncertainty is perceived as a negative factor that should and can be eliminated. This article presents an alternative approach which recognises that radical...

Internal and external stakeholders have different information needs over a project’s life, for purposes that include adaptive management, accountability, compliance, reporting and learning. A project’s monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning, or MEAL, system should provide the information needed by these stakeholders at the level of statistical reliability, detail and timing appropriate to inform data use. In emergency contexts where the situation is still fluid, ‘informal...

HM Treasury guidance on what to consider when designing an evaluation.

HM Treasury guidance on what to consider when designing an evaluation.

Most people agree that monitoring and evaluation (M&E) should be used for both learning and accountability. However, there is no consensus about which one is more important. The debate matters as there is sometimes tension between the two purposes. In the past there has often been a disconnect between M&E and learning. Many M&E systems are primarily designed to enable accountability to donors.