Shifting from M&E to MEL: What does it take? Part 1

What does it take to shift from M&E to MEL?

In Edition 39, we explored why simply renaming our M&E systems as MEL is insufficient to transform us into a learning-oriented program or organization.

Today, we'll discuss a few practical steps for making this shift.

A good starting point is to consider why the shift from M&E to MEL was initiated in the first place.

According to our discussions last week,

the shift emerged primarily due to the recognition that M&E systems often focused too much on accountability, reporting, and compliance rather than actively driving program improvement and adaptive management.

What does this tell us?

MEL is a program management function.

One of my favorite MEL resources is IFAD's "Section 2, Using M&E to Manage for Impact.?"

This guide offers tips not only to M&E staff but also to program managers on understanding the range of their M&E responsibilities, how M&E can improve decision-making, and what the managers need to ensure happens if M&E is to help the project achieve its impact.

In the remainder of this edition, I will share some key takeaways from the guide and relate them to my experiences over the last decade in making the transition from M&E to MEL a reality.

What does managing for impact mean?

'It means you need to respond to changing circumstances and increased understanding by adapting the project to be more likely to achieve its intended impacts.'

A couple of things to note from this definition;

• We need to understand our program's intended impact,?which is usually presented in the Theory of Change (ToC) or Results Framework format. All program staff must understand and articulate the outcomes of their work and the logical pathways behind them. One of the best ways to remind staff is to ensure that they can articulate how each activity they conduct contributes to the program-level outcomes.
• We need to monitor the circumstances surrounding our program. Most of us only consider the context and assumptions during the design phase. We do not continuously monitor the context or assumptions and continue working based on a theory that no longer holds. A quick tip is to review your current M&E system and see if you have any context-monitoring indicators included.
• We need to seek new knowledge about the technical area continuously. This involves asking technical learning questions during implementation to assess whether the logical pathways still make sense. Our solutions are not straightforward since we usually do not solve simple problems. We need to continue testing whether our solutions are correct in these cases.
• We need to respond. Gathering information about the context and assumptions and increasing our technical knowledge are not enough. With every new information, we must ask ourselves, 'What does this mean for our work?' This is where reflection comes in—as I usually call it,?'the beyond the dashboard work.' We must bring the team together, reflect on what the experience is teaching us, and figure out how to move forward with this new information.
• We need to adapt. Most program staff I interact with find adapting scary. There are many myths and misconceptions about adaptive management. For the sake of this edition, I will highlight two critical points: adapting does not necessarily mean changing your 'what'; it can mean just changing your 'how.' This means you can maintain your outcomes and adjust your activities or how you use them to achieve them. And secondly, many donors, with substantial evidence, will allow you to make strategic adaptations.

There is much more to learn from this guide, so I will make this part 1 and continue in the next edition.

Today, I would like you to reflect on what it means to have MEL as a program management function rather than just a compliance and reporting function.

We can already see that it involves more than the M&E staff; the program managers and/or decision-makers should actively champion the MEL activities to ensure they serve management purposes.

Thank you for reading Edition 40 of The LAM Collective. If this is your first time joining us, you can find previous editions curated here.

I would love to hear from you (share in the comments section)

1. Are you a program manager/staff member: what do you think are your MEL-related duties?
2. Are you a MEL staff member: What MEL-related duties would you wish that program staff owned?

Florence Randari is an experienced Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) professional with nearly a decade of experience designing and implementing effective MEL systems and promoting a learning and adaptive management culture within the development and humanitarian sectors.

She is also the Founder of The Learn Adapt Manage (LAM) Network, a social change initiative aimed at advancing the adoption of learning and adaptive management as essential factors in promoting development effectiveness.