Making M&E work for adaptive management requires strategic skills

In my previous blog I said that adaptive management requires changes to the way in which monitoring and evaluation (M&E) should be conducted within complex programmes. The biggest change may need to be in the skill set of M&E staff, in particular encouraging more strategic thinking.

Adaptive management requires constant learning in order to provide information to decision-makers on how a programme is progressing and what is changing in the wider environment. In theory M&E should contribute to this learning, and there is a widespread belief that a good M&E system is vital for adaptive management.