Evidence Monitoring involves collecting and analysing information about a programme to track its progress while it is being delivered. Monitoring data supports ‘real-time’ management decisions to adapt and strengthen a programme to maximise effectiveness. Monitoring is an ongoing process that continues throughout the lifetime and is usually conducted by programme teams.
Evaluation involves assessing the success of a programme at a specific point in time to examine what it has achieved at midline and/or endline. Evaluations often include some form of comparative analysis. This may consist of examining change over time and comparing it with results at baseline or measuring change between different groups who have received the project or have not.
Although internal evaluation by programme teams is possible, evaluations are often conducted by independent external teams. Evaluation findings and recommendations are used to inform future decisions about the next phase of a programme, and are often shared so others beyond the programme team can learn from them too.
To note:
The distinction between monitoring and evaluation is often not a clear-cut reality.
For example, in adaptive and iterative programme approaches – monitoring increasingly goes beyond tracking the progress of a programme to a more evaluative approach, seeking to capture progress against milestones.
In addition, evaluations often draw on monitoring data as a source of evidence, creating a direct link between the two.
Process evaluations work at the interface, seeking to track how programme activities are being delivered and examine whether and how they lead to change.
