MONITORING AND EVALUATION IN THE NEW YEAR 2024

Happy new year 2024 to my wonderful readers!

Welcome back to my articles on MEAL (monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning). This year I start with renewed enthusiasm and trust that we will mutually learn from one another along this journey of retrospection and improvement.

Today I would like to first point out that I am changing my writing from weekday to Sunday mornings. This is driven by a realization that my weekdays can get overwhelming but Sunday mornings find me much more calm and thinking more straight. I trust not to sustain this momentum God willing!

My focus today is on how to revamp MEAL in the new year. I chose this subject because often, people look at the start of a period with lots of optimism (so am I!). We fall into the trap of missing connections with our pasts. Yet, and especially in Africa, there is a strong connection between the past, present and future. It is this connection (read plural "connections") that I got in mind.

In your organization, the new year provides first and foremost, an opportunity to revisit the culture within which you operate. Broadly, there are two cultures, namely; facilitative and toxic. I am not going to define these two because they are as obvious as day and night. My point is that we all need to relook at our operational environments (in your office, business and even homes/houses) with a keen eye of the previous year. Was it facilitative or toxic? What merits carrying forward and what needs improvements? A candid examination of our operational cultures helps us to change what limits us alongside strengthening what has been helpful. I am aware that these my points are rather obvious but we also know that the world continues being more poorer and full of increasing inequalities without sympathy. Repetitions are therefore in order. Those who are Christians (no offense to others) know that we get the message of salvation and the second coming so frequently that we can easily easily ignore the two messages.

Once you have conducted an examination of your operational culture(s) (there could be a mix of facilitative and toxic), it is time to fit (or even unfit) this/these within your MEAL environment. Remember what I have said before or what you already know to be the ultimate purpose of MEAL (learning and re-learning as well as un-learning). Did your culture(s) enhance MEAL or inhibit the process and outputs/products? Were we a learning organization of not? If yes, what needs to be sustained in the new year? If not, what were the reasons for the misses? And how can these reasons be redressed in 2024. Failure to focus on the misses is comforting but basically hiding behind a tree leaf. You are going to ultimately see the consequences and most likely they will not be very pleasant. My year for example has been a mix of bags in terms of personal and professional experiences. I have missed out a lot of learnings and for various reasons. I am facing those misses and the reasons thereof head-on. Join me in this journey.

My third and final point is for you to come to terms with the "hard" substance in MEAL. How well did you implement your MEAL plan or framework? What would be the percentage of success. A caution here is that percentages cannot be accurately calculated on these matters. They are only simple estimates of our confidence levels with our actions or inactions. My view is for you to revisit and list the areas where you did well and what you have to improve in 2024. How well did you for example operate within your objectives as an organization? Was your program/project implementation in line with the plan or were there deviations? If you deviated, why? Even if the deviation was justifiable, e.g. shortage of funding, is this a song you want to keep singing in the new year or do you want to be more realistic in what could be done with the limited resources available? Maybe it is time to refocus your resource mobilization strategy (assuming you have a strategy) and activities. Maybe you want to revisit your work altogether. The point is that this is time (within January max) become more candid with yourself and your organization. Otherwise the new year will be wasted from the start.

I trust that we can engage more deeply on these MEAL matters in the year 2024.