A robust monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) system will enable the SAYCCC to track the progress of its work, measure its effects (intended and unintended), ensure accountability to stakeholders and enable adaptive management and learning within the programme.
Objectives:
To be more inclusive, participatory, gender-responsive and conflict-sensitive, as well as knowledge-and-impact-driven.
To create an approach that is rooted in our members’ commitment to gender and intergenerational equity, and social inclusion, which remind us that power relations are inherent in monitoring and research work and that choices about how data are collected, analysed, presented and owned can either help empower people or reinforce existing inequities.
Scope:
The SAYCCC MEL system should inform day-to-day and strategic decision making to feed continuous improvements in the quality and effectiveness of project implementation. It will foster accountability and transparency – to donors, partners, members and supporters – and social accountability to the people and communities. Knowledge generated and shared through the MEL system should empower movements with data, stories, narratives and knowledge to use as evidence to advocate for change, while also demonstrating our projects’ added value, successes, lessons learned and challenges faced. In keeping with the focus on climate justice, MEL activities should take account of the environmental and social costs of technology, transportation, energy and resource use, to strike a balance between sustainability, effectiveness and equity in everything we do.
Primary MEL Data Collection Methodologies:
Outcome harvesting: the organization will use outcome harvesting. OH is ideal for monitoring progress in influencing programmes that use policy processes and practices as an entry point to achieve systemic change. OH does not work from predetermined outcomes, it stresses the identification of changes that are both positive and negative, intended and unintended.
Complementary MEL Data Connection (stories of change or impact stories): this is a qualitative methodology used to document the effects of interventions on people and organizations and understand how change came about. Stories of change provide an in-depth look at how stakeholders interpret the changes they have experienced through the programme. Subjects are determined by monitoring of intermediary outcome indicators and results of the mid-term evaluation. Sampling criteria could include stories with learning potential, including innovative approaches, best practices and unexpected results.
Digital media monitoring and analysis: careful tracking and analysis of social media activity in projects’ activities will help measure the spread of climate justice narratives. Using publicly available data, it is possible to track the spread of messages across any particular social media platform or the relative volume of Google searches for a particular phrase over time in a city.
Mid-term Review: Context analyses completed by team members will form the core of the baseline study. The mid-term review will build on internally conducted OH results to evaluate the projects’ relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and coherence, and make recommendations for how the project can adapt in its final years for maximum impact. It will also validate the project’s monitoring and learning activities, especially OH, so the MEL system can also adapt and improve. Evaluations and reflection sessions will be inclusive, participatory and responsive to the expectations of the programme’s target groups.