What Works in Practice? Responding to Complexity in International Development Monitoring and Evaluation
Publisher: George Washington University
Author(s): Kathryn Hendren
Date: 2019
Topics: Livelihoods, Monitoring and Evaluation, Programming
The integration of complexity into study and practice of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) has been accompanied by increased demands on M&E teams. Practitioners must now meet accountability requirements for measuring impact, include strategies to capture unexpected program outcomes, incentivize learning amongst program teams, and produce information for managing adaptively over a program’s life. For this dissertation I conducted interviews with M&E practitioners to understand their perspectives of complexity, experiences using tools touted by scholars, and innovative efforts to respond to complexity in program contexts. I found that M&E practitioners are, by and large, utilizing and adapting many of the tools described by scholars to meet some demands on M&E activities, but challenges for meeting the multiplicity of demands remain. I propose a new complexity-response framework to help guide M&E practitioners in designing M&E systems that can address complexity, encourage learning and adaptive management, and continue to meet donor accountability needs.