NGO support toolkit (English)  >  Monitoring and evaluation  >  Planning and design 

Planning

The development of the M&E system can be facilitated through the Logical Framework Approach. This is an analytical, planning and management tool, which can help NSPs and their partner NGO/CBOs to:

• analyse the existing situation during project preparation;
• establish and agree on programme objectives and strategies;
• establish a logical hierarchy of the means to reach objectives;
• identity the indicators for monitoring and evaluation;
• establish how outputs and outcomes might best be monitored and evaluated, and who should be responsible for collecting what data and by when;
• identify the potential risks to achieving the objectives, and to sustaining the outcomes;
• present a summary of the project in a standard format

A useful tool to clearly outline the information developed from the above and the relationships is in a matrix format, which is the one usually referred to as a Logframe. It clarifies the vertical logic from activities to the goal with each level providing the rationale for the next level down and the horizontal logic helps establish the basis for monitoring and evaluating the project.

A simplified format of the matrix is shown, and the matrix can be adapted to suit different situations and priorities and can include other components not given or exclude components shown below:

Looking at the table above, for M&E purposes, it can be helpful to identify several major areas of the organisation’s work (such as prevention; care and support; capacity building). Under each area, a general outcome and several specific objectives can be defined. Under each specific objective should be specified a number of activities, which together should lead to the fulfilment of the objective. The defined activities should include those implemented by the NSP and activities implemented by partner NGOs/CBOs (usually with funding from the NSP). An NSP may have one log frame (or M&E system) for the organisation, which includes the activities of its NGOs/CBOs or it can have several separate log frames (one for each programme or project or NGO partner); or both organisational, programme level and NGO partner log frames.

An organisational level system will lend a sense of integration and coherence to M&E activities but may be too broad to meet the data needs of specific programmes and partners. If there are several partners, things can be kept straightforward by using the same indicators across partners wherever possible and by keeping the number of required indicators to a minimum. If NGOs/CBOs are implementing different activities, then developing common indicators might be difficult, but if there is an overlap in the activities between NGOs/CBOs, then it is best to have common indicators

The log frame can provide a useful basis for the M&E system to the extent that it remains relevant to programme needs. It should therefore be treated as a ‘live’ document requiring constant review and updating. A log frame that ‘sits on the shelf’ will soon lose its usefulness both to programmers and evaluators.

Issues to consider

• Resources should be allocated for M&E activities, including training activities for M&E functions
• The system should be run and managed efficiently, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities; time allocated for collecting data and reporting; challenges in retrieving data identified; user-friendly collection tools developed.

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