Monitoring and evaluation : Essential Readings

  • World Bank Institute (2012) Guide to Evaluating Capacity Development Results

    The standard M&E approach for assessing capacity development results often dismisses valuable lessons learnt, simply because capacity development objectives  were not adequately specified in the "results chain".  The 17 guidance notes in this publication explain and demonstrate how to assess capacity development efforts by reviewing and documenting the results of ongoing or completed capacity development activities, projects, programs or broader strategies. In doing so, the guide aims to support practitioners and evaluators to evaluate the results of capacity development work retrospectively. The Guide is based on the World Bank Institute's Capacity Development and Results Framework (CDRF), which was designed to provide a systematic approach and a set of tools for development practitioners to design a rigorous yet flexible capacity development strategy. The CDRF can be used both to test programme logic ex ante, and to measure and evaluate results ex post.

  • David Watson (2010) "Combining the ‘Best of Two Worlds’ in Monitoring and Evaluation of Capacity Development" in: Ubels, J., N. Acquaye-Baddoo and A. Fowler (eds) Capacity Development in Practice, Earthscan, pp. 239-249

    The drive for accountability is pushing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of capacity development, and development in general, in two different directions that a practitioner needs to be aware of. One reflects a traditional results-based, log-frame approach to intentional change. The other relies on an open systems way of thinking, and the related interactive M&E methods. In this chapter, David Watson acknowledges the merits of conventional resultsbased approaches but outlines their limitations when applied to more complex situations and to the multi-faceted nature of capacity itself. With extensive references to literature and cases available, he goes on to review examples of successful and innovative M&E methods and shows how these combine ‘the best of two worlds’.

  • Nigel Simister with Rachel Smith (2010) Monitoring and Evaluating Capacity Building: Is it really that difficult? INTRAC Praxis Paper 3

    This paper is part of an ongoing programme at INTRAC looking at the monitoring and evaluation of capacity building. It examines both theory and current practice, and aims to promote debate on some of the key barriers to progress. The paper is primarily concerned with capacity building within civil society organizations (CSOs), although many of the lessons also apply to commercial and state organizations. It is based on a literature review and interviews with capacity building providers in the North and South.

  • Engel, P., N. Keijzer, and T. Land (2007) A balanced approach to monitoring and evaluating capacity and performance: A proposal for a framework, ECDPM Discussion Paper No. 58E

    This paper seeks to address one of the weaknesses of  current monitoring and evaluating (M&E) practices: an inability to fully recognize the mix of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ characteristics that make up effective capacity. Building on the findings of the eighteen country studies that were done in the context of ECDPM's landmark study on "Capacity, Change and Performance", this paper proposes a framework for a balanced approach to assessing capacity that is based on five core capabilities. The framework is presented as a possible basis for a comprehensive framework for monitoring and evaluating capacity and performance in multi-stakeholder settings.

  • David Watson (2006) Monitoring and Evaluation of Capacity and Capacity Development, ECDPM Discussion Paper 58B

    This paper reviews the donor and practitioner literature, and innovations in M&E aspects of public sector and NGO capacity and capacity building in developing countries from both results-based management (RBM) and systems-thinking perspectives.