Capacity building research
Read some research and analysis on strengthening capacity building in monitoring and evaluation.
- Read the report: Strengthening monitoring and evaluation capacity: An analysis of current delivery of monitoring and evaluation programme offerings at South African Universities. By Gail Campbell, Zenex Foundation
2. M&E Community of Practice Members Share Some Ideas on How The CoP can be a Learning Space
- There should be opportunities to discuss specific questions from participants, relating to particular M&E challenges in their own contexts. The CoP could help participants generate practical solutions to real problems.
- There needs to be some form of sharing by different participants from different contexts. People from different backgrounds bring different perspectives into discussions, which can be illuminating.
- The CoP meeting content has to speak to a mixed range of participant knowledge and skills.
- We need to demystify the language of M&E.
- A learning space should be a safe space. People are always willing to talk about success stories, but not so willing to share mistakes and open themselves or their organisations up to criticism and judgement. However, it is from mistakes that we often learn the most.
- We need help in ways in which CoP members can build M&E understanding in their own organisations: how do we ensure that M&E becomes part of the organisational culture wherever we work?
Source: Lessons and Reflections about Implementing M&E in South Africa: An anthology of articles by Zenex staff, M&E experts and NGOs. www.zenexfoundation.org.za
3. Read the article ‘What does it take to get stakeholders to participate meaningfully in evaluations?‘
4. Read the report: ‘Strengthening Monitoring & Evaluation Capacity: A Landscape Analysis’ (December 2018). Lerato Shai focuses on a donor approach to M&E.
Commissioning evaluations
This collection of articles looks at why and how to commission evaluations, and the importance of these evaluations in leading to evidence-based decision making in the development of initiatives.
- Read the article ‘Experience responding to call for proposals by JET education services’.
- Read the article ‘Commissioning evaluations at Zenex Foundation‘
- Read the article ‘Government commissioned evaluations: A reflection from the DBE‘
- Read ‘Commissioning external evaluations – a private foundation reflects’ by Khulisa Management Services.
Budgeting for M&E
This article helps outline how to budget for monitoring and evaluation, and the importance of including M&E in grant funding proposals.
- Read the article ‘Perspectives on budgeting and costs of M&E‘
Evaluation design
Evaluation design is critical to establishing a structure that will provide the required data to answer evaluation questions. The design is determined by the purpose of the evaluation, the theory of change, the evaluation questions, and the budget.
- Read the article: ‘ Why we use randomised control trials (RCT) in educational research‘
- Read the article ‘Lessons on evaluation design‘
- Read the article ‘Which evaluation methods should we consider? All of them‘
Implementing evaluations
Evidence-based research, monitoring and evaluation is foundational to rational decision-making when informing policies, programmes and interventions. This is imperative for public policy to have an impact on service delivery, and especially so in the education sector.
- Read the article ‘Implementing evaluations: Successes and challenges from a DBE perspective‘
