Reflections from a Development Practitioner (Part 1)

"If you do not tell your story, someone else will."

Hello, and welcome to the 34th Edition of #LearnAdaptManage. Thank you to our 5,622 subscribers for joining us on our journey to use #evidence to inform decisions and actions in #internationaldevelopment. ?? Click the subscribe button on the upper right corner to join us!

Dear readers, welcome! You are getting the raw version of what will eventually turn into my memoir. (If you are my future editor and reading this, please forgive me. I couldn't wait, but I promise to rewrite before publishing)

I have been reflecting extensively on my journey in the development sector over the past couple of years, and what better way to document that than to share it with the world?

In the coming LAM Editions before the end of the calendar year, I will be sharing my journey with you.

This is the part where I tell you, "Please walk with me."

So, let me start from the beginning.

I started my journey in the development sector as a Business Outcomes Research Analyst (BORA) Intern. You don't need to worry about the title so much. Also, the BORA acronym was unnecessary, but I work for an NGO; what can I say?

Essentially, I was recruited to design a survey, administer it to over 5,000 respondents via an online platform and phone follow-ups, analyze the data, and produce a report that would be used to share the initiative's impact and raise funds for the following year.

I loved my work! I had just graduated college, and I felt like a grown-up. ??

And if you are asking, yes, the internship was unpaid, so I worked there three days/week and had to find a job to cover my living expenses.

Despite this 'unpaid internship' experience, I am and will remain a strong advocate for paid internships in the humanitarian and development sectors! If I had not negotiated to work three days and spend the rest of my time in a 'paid job,' I am unsure if I would have started my career at that stage.

I am happy to say that the organization I worked for then has changed its policies, and all interns are now paid!

I was introduced to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) during my BORA internship. The team had just hired a consultant to support them in creating a Theory of Change (ToC) and an M&E framework, and I happened to interact with him during this period. (Hi Nick)

I am trying to remember why I was fascinated by his work. I had just graduated with a Bachelor's in Economics, so developing models and testing them in the real world to see if they worked might have been intellectually captivating.

PS: I know this is not an autobiography, but I have mentioned before that my skepticism of the development sector and curiosity about why things do not work as expected led me here.

Back to the BORA internship.

So, I ended up shadowing Nick, the consultant, and reading a lot about M&E during this period. Everything I read online, from how to develop a ToC to the difference between logic models and logical framework, made sense on paper.

During this time, I also spoke to several teams working at headquarters but supporting programs in the field, mainly in Africa. I already knew that I wanted to work directly with communities in the field, but the conversations I had affirmed my decision. (Thanks, Rose)

I got some referrals from the networking. Can you guess what came out of it? Another internship, but this time in Nairobi! I was getting closer to where I wanted to be. And yes, it was a paid internship, so this was my full-time job. ??

Let me stop here today!

In the next edition, I will share more about my 2nd internship and its importance in shaping my journey as an M&E practitioner. (Also, I think this is the first time I got a work badge; I must have told everyone in my family about it - there is something about wearing a work badge that made me believe that I had made it in life)

Thank you so much for reading this far! I am happy that you are a part of this community and can walk this journey with me. See you on 3rd December!

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Florence Randari is an experienced Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) professional who has built effective monitoring and learning systems and processes for programs across East Africa for almost a decade. Her expertise lies in helping teams develop and maintain a learning and adaptive management culture that ultimately leads to tangible improvements in program impact. She is the founder of Learn Adapt Manage (LAM).