Lessons Learned from different CARE country offices in Design, Monitoring and Evaluation

Design, monitoring and evaluation capacity and systems within the CARE world vary as much as the countries in which we operate. Within a single country, projects may have very different D,M&E systems. Generalising across the breadth of the CARE world is difficult and perhaps foolish. However, having been asked to do so, I have summarised some of the key trends, both positive and negative that I have observed as I have worked in different country offices and in the CARE International UK office in London. I have also listed examples of some of the positive attempts to improve D,M&E, primarily in Bangladesh. Pulling these lessons together has been entirely subjective, and non-participatory. On the other hand, the presentation invoked intense discussion.

This presentation was given during a workshop in D,M&E capacity assessment. It was designed to highlight ‘non-technical’ aspects of D,M&E that are nevertheless critical to successful D,M&E and more importantly — learning. This is intended to fill a gap in the Capacity Assessment tool, which is focussed more on technical aspects of D,M&E.