Section 5. Deciding What ot Monitor and Evaluate

When deciding what information to monitor and evaluate, keep the following in mind:

Seek the information needs of different stakeholders � with them. Do not consider only project management information needs.
Be sure to include information that can help you answer the five core evaluation questions: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.
Include information that can help you understand how well the project is dealing with cross-cutting issues such as the quality of participation, gender-balanced impacts and reaching the poorest.
Remember to include information for each level of the objective hierarchy: goal, purpose, objectives and activities. This will help you answer the five types of evaluation questions (see point 2).
Include enough operational information to know if you are making optimal use of resources and that operations are good quality.
Seek information that can help you not only to check targets but, especially, to explain progress. Only by knowing why something is happening or why not, do you have a basis for deciding what corrective action is needed.
Look out for the unintended. Tracking information related to the objective hierarchy will only keep you up to date on what you intend to achieve. Seek out unintended positive and negative impacts in order to take any corrective action that might be necessary.
Last but not least, stick to the "less-is-more" principle. Only include a piece of information if someone in the project clearly uses it to improve impact. Regularly revise your list of information needs to filter out the information that does not seem to be critical to manage for impact.

5.1.2 Value of the M&E Matrix

The logical framework approach (LFA) that all IFAD-supported projects need to follow does not provide much detailed guidance on what information is useful to track. The standard logframe matrix provides insufficient space for detailed M&E comments. Only two columns are suggested in which to summarise M&E: a column for "indicators" and one for "means of verification" (see Section 4). This is not enough to be able to implement M&E.

To make M&E operational you need much more detail. This can be summarised in the "M&E matrix" (see Section 5.3), which contains the following information:

performance questions;
information needs and indicators;
baseline information requirements, status and responsibilities;
data-gathering methods, frequency and responsibilities;
required forms, planning, training, data management, expertise, resources and responsibilities;
analysis, reporting, feedback and change processes and responsibilities.

Looking at the matrix you might well wonder about the need for all this detail. A rule of thumb is "if everyone knows what they need to do when, why and for whom, then you have enough detail". Until then, keep detailing with the appropriate people.

Developing the M&E matrix after project start-up involves six steps:

Identify performance questions.
Identify information needs and indicators.
Know what baseline information you need.
Select which data-gathering methods to use, by whom and how often.
Identify the necessary practical support for information gathering.
Organise analysis, feedback and change.

The rest of this section details how to work with the M&E matrix. Annex C provides an example of the M&E matrix, which is based on the logframe example in Annex B.

5.1.3 Performance Questions and Indicators

It is common practice to jump straight from having refined the objectives in the logframe matrix to detailing the indicators. This causes a series of problems as people drown in detail before agreeing on why the indicators they suggest might be of interest and how they could support decision-making.

Identifying performance questions for each level of the objective hierarchy (see point 2, 5.1.2 above), before detailing indicators, helps you focus your information-gathering on what will truly advance understanding and improve project performance. Performance questions are very useful for projects that are trying to innovate the how to of development. For example, the MARENASS project in Peru disburses all funding through farmer competitions, while the FODESA project in Mali sub-contracts all activities. They need to learn how to do this well so must monitor the quality of the process � not just whether targets are hit.

With performance questions, you can start identifying what information you need. This can include indicators and, possibly, additional background information that allows you to interpret the data from the indicators. Indicators will only ever show a partial view. They represent a simplification or approximation of a situation. An indicator simply helps communicate changes that are usually more complex. Using an indicator often means reducing data to the symbolic representation of a project objective, in a way that is relevant and significant for the people who will use the information.

Almost any topic that needs to be monitored can be assessed using either quantitative or qualitative indicators, according to the kind of information you need. Many indicators use adjectives. Common adjectives in indicators are: successful, adequate, equitable, good, effective, participatory, empowered and well functioning. When using adjectives in indicators, make sure everyone involved agrees on what they mean.

When working with indicators to assess impact, you are trying to create an overall picture built up of various aspects. A typical project will want to know its impact on "quality of life" or "poverty alleviation". Yet each project component makes a unique contribution: health activities reduced morbidity/mortality, agricultural development helped increase yields and incomes, functional literacy built self-esteem, etc. So one indicator or even several will not be adequate to understand the changes. For impact assessments, a descriptive analysis rather than single indicators often better capture the overall changes.

One of the first concrete tasks that you, as project director or M&E unit coordinator, are likely to face is establishing baselines. To see change, you will need to make a comparison. A baseline serves as a point of comparison. You have three options, each with their advantages and disadvantages (see 5.6):

Three alternatives are: (1) using the first measurement as the starting point, even if it is after your intervention has started; (2) using a rolling baseline wherein you collect information of a site or group only when you start working there or with them; and (3) making optimal use of existing documentation to develop an overview of the situation.

The sign of a healthy M&E system is that it evolves over time. As the project evolves, activities will change, groups will evolve, and the understanding of what information is useful will grow. Plan regular revision of the list of information needs and indicators.

To decide what you need to know, first make an effort to understand the information needs of different stakeholders (see Box 5-1). This requires analysis with the stakeholders of the information they need, either by asking them to develop their own list of information needs or by checking a suggested list with them. Stakeholders are likely to choose to focus their M&E requirements on their areas of specific interest (see Table 5-1). Including different stakeholders in identifying what information to track will also increase the likelihood that the information will be used.

Table 5-1. Examples of indicators for different stakeholders in a farmer-to-farmer extension project, Mexico²

List all key stakeholders and organise meetings with them to define their information needs (see Box 5-2). Be aware that not all information needs can be anticipated ahead of time. As the project evolves and stakeholders develop their visions for and understanding of the project, information needs will have to be adjusted (see 5.7).

The project M&E unit may need to coordinate the information flows to ensure that pieces of information complement (and do not duplicate) each other and to organise everyone�s access to each other�s data and analysis. See Section 6 for more on developing an M&E communication strategy.

Start by identifying your information needs in relation to the objective hierarchy. Each level of the objective hierarchy (goal, purpose, output and activity) has unique performance questions and therefore its own information needs. In general, as you move from activities up to goal in the objective hierarchy, M&E becomes less straightforward (see Table 5-2). For example, at the activity and output levels, you can quite easily track which activities have been completed and their direct outputs. This is operational information. However, it is more difficult to identify the outcomes of the outputs together.

At the impact level, assessing the extent to which a project has reduced poverty and improved people�s livelihoods requires careful thought about the performance questions and indicators that will be appropriate. In general, as you move up the objective hierarchy, you will probably find it necessary to integrate qualitative and quantitative information, relying less on single quantitative indicators to make sense of progress.

After you identify what basic information you will require to gauge whether you are proceeding according to plan, you might have to add more information needs. You must ensure that you can answer the five standard types of evaluation questions (see Section 2.1), referred to here as "the five key questions":

The M&E of operations will focus on the questions of "effectiveness" and "efficiency". More strategic reflections, like during annual reviews and supervision missions, will look at the questions of "relevance", "impact" and "sustainability". Some projects are also asked to prove their cost-effectiveness (see Box 5-3).

Many IFAD-supported projects strive towards encouraging gender equality hand in hand with poverty reduction. Knowing how well you are doing on the gender-equality scale will require an M&E system that tracks gender-disaggregated differences. Without this, a project will find it very difficult to prove its effectiveness for any gender-sensitive objectives such as "increased purchasing power" or "increased access to land". Indicators will need to be formulated that enable gender-disaggregated data collection and analysis. Different aspects of the baseline and interim thematic studies also need to be gender sensitive.

In a Zimbabwe project, during workshops for preparing the monitoring system, there was strong debate among participants about how to include a gender-sensitive perspective. Gender concerns are crucial for a successful project, as gender imbalances persist in terms of plot-holding, division of labour, access to profit, etc. Yet gender issues had not been spelled out in project objectives. Focusing on gender when monitoring change allowed it to appear as a cross-cutting concern.

Other social differences that a project considers critical also need monitoring. For example, in Nepal, a project will be disaggregating data not only by gender, but also by caste and ethnic groups. This will help the implementing team determine whether the most vulnerable groups are benefiting.

Information for managing project operations is just as important for overall performance as information about achieving the project strategy. Operational information monitoring tends to be straightforward for most projects, partly because physical and financial monitoring involves simple counting. But as there is so much that can be counted, the trick is to limit this type of monitoring to the necessary. For the key areas of operational management, Table 5-3 lists the main management tasks and the information needs.

Table 5-3. Key areas of operational management, management tasks and information needs

In Indonesia, project staff said, "We need to understand the link between physical progress monitoring and the benefits of physical outputs for the rural poor. For example, we don�t know what effect it has on the poor when the monitoring data shows that 50 of the 100 km of feeder roads have now been built. So we don�t know the benefits of our investments. With our current physical indicators, we cannot see the link between investment, activity, progress and benefit."

To explain progress � and not just measure how much of something occurred � you can:

As project director or M&E unit coordinator, you will probably find that keeping track of the use of inputs and of targets for activities and outputs is time consuming. Yet it is essential. Furthermore, the example of the Chilean cooperative, at the beginning of Section 5, shows that it is not enough. You will need to know why something is working well or not so you are able to provide strategic guidance and make appropriate adjustments. Simply knowing that you have, for example, built 86% of the roads within the expected timeframe, does not tell you if these are of good quality, in the right place and impacting poverty, or whether capacities have been built to maintain them.

Let�s take a practical example to see how targets are linked with monitoring that explains progress. Many IFAD-supported projects intend to "build capacity" or "develop local institutions". Common indicators for this are, for example, "number of small farmer groups formed" or "number of extension staff trained". However, this tells you nothing about the quality of the work or about impact. You might have helped initiate 100 small farmer groups but find that six months after the first meeting, only 18 are still functioning. So you will need to monitor, for instance, the quality of the process through which these groups are set up so that, later, you are better able to make the adjustments needed to sustain the groups. Another example is if you want to assess impact. You would need to evaluate with group members how their membership in the group is improving their livelihoods (or not).

In practice, monitoring in order to be able to understand what the numbers mean requires the use of qualitative methods (see Section 6 and Annex D).

Keeping informed of the operating environment is also critical to interpret success or failure. Section 2.2.3 discusses ways to keep track of the project context. Those involved in the projects will update themselves through existing information sources and via their formal and informal networks. But updates can also be sub-contracted as pieces of research on key topics relevant to your project. You can also organise an annual seminar to which you invite specialists to provide an overview of trends. The issues you will need to track depend on the project focus. Common issues include: legislation, macro-economics (markets, prices), agricultural price policies and trends at the national/international level, poverty status, gender relations, the organisational landscape, demographic change and health trends.

Indicators are critical to projects. They represent information you know will interest you. And what about important information that we do not expect? In the Chile example, they did not think to look at the financial results of the new investments.

Some projects include in their annual, mid-term and completion evaluations the question of unintended positive and negative impacts that are not part of the objective hierarchy. This is a good M&E practice. Section 6 and Annex D describe some ways to assess unintended impacts.

You can also track the unexpected through more regular reflections. When deciding what to track, you cannot anticipate the unknown. But you can plan time to reflect on the unexpected. Ask yourself, "What happened with respect to this project activity/relationship/output/component that we did not expect?" To work through this, the project should address the questions:

One of the most difficult tasks for projects is to monitor within their limits. Ministry staff involved in one project in Indonesia said, "In central Jakarta we only get data on a monthly basis from 30% of the groups. In the two provinces that perform the best, we receive data from 80% of the groups." If the requirements were reduced (frequency, number of indicators and level of detail), the project might get a better response rate and be able to use its limited resources for more optimal monitoring.

Probably the biggest complaint of project M&E staff is that monitoring many indicators gets in the way of the "real" work of implementation. It is very important to reduce data collection to the minimum necessary to meet key management, learning and reporting needs. Trying to monitor too much can ruin the entire M&E system.

The PADEMER project in Colombia encountered many difficulties due to the numerous indicators suggested in the appraisal report. So, the monitoring unit facilitated a revision process for the indicators with the national technical coordination unit and the implementing NGOs. All agreed to continue using the key impact indicators as given in the appraisal report ("variation in incomes" and "generation of employment"). They then formulated indicators for the five project components: productive development, business management, markets and marketing, organisational development and financial services. They reduced over 100 indicators to 18 key ones that can demonstrate the changes the project stakeholders expect to deliver.

With those involved in detailing the operational M&E plan, screen all proposed indicators before agreeing to monitor them. For every indicator or piece of information that you or others are suggesting to monitor and evaluate, ask yourself, "Who needs to use this information, when and to do what exactly?" In a project in Indonesia, data on livestock, farm inputs, group details (e.g., savings, loans, training completed and technical progress made) and finance and administration information are recorded. Fieldworkers collect information from 13 different record books kept by each farmer group. Perhaps screening this project�s indicators for quality and end-use could make monitoring more useful and less of a burden.

When there is doubt about an indicator, seriously consider excluding it from your M&E plan � as tempting as it might be to think that someone may find it of interest. Including what is nice to know will only make your life difficult. Try to include only what you need to know.

To make M&E operational you need much more detail, which can be summarised in the "M&E matrix" (see Table 5-4). The rest of this section and Sections 6 to 8 provide the details on how to deal with each column. Here we will briefly outline the M&E matrix, looking at each column in turn.

Performance Questions	Information Needs and Indicators	Baseline Information Require- ments Status and Responsib- ilities	Data- Gathering Methods, Frequency and Responsib-ilities	Required Forms, Planning, Training, Data Manage-ment, Expertise, Resources and Responsib- ilities	Analysis, Reporting, Feedback and Change Processes, and Responsib- ilities
EXAMPLE � Project Key Outcome 1:

EXAMPLE � Project Activity 1.1:

5.3.2 Step 1. Identifying Performance Questions

Rather than starting with indicators, first identify performance questions. This helps you focus your information gathering on what you will really use for understanding and improving project performance. Identifying performance questions (indicators and selection methods) will be iterative: make an initial choice, assess its feasibility, accept and use it or reject it and find the next option. Step 1 is discussed in 5.4.

5.3.3 Step 2. Identifying Information Needs and Indicators

Using your performance questions, you can more easily identify useful indicators and other information needs for which you will need to collect data. Only data that help answer your performance questions are necessary. This helps avoid collecting information that is difficult to use to guide the project strategy and operations. This step is treated in detail in 5.5.

5.3.4 Step 3. Knowing What Baseline Information You Need

Many baseline studies suffer from information overload and lack of use. When deciding whether you need to collect baseline data for a particular performance question, ask yourself if you need to compare information to be able to answer the question. If not, or if information already exists, then you will not need to collect baseline data. This step is treated in detail in 5.6.

5.3.6 Step 4. Selecting Which Data Collection Methods to Use, by Whom and How Often

Once you have decided what information is needed and what indicators will be used, you need to decide which methods will be used for gathering the data. You have many options: methods that are more qualitative or more quantitative, more or less participatory, and more or less resource intensive. Each will provide information of varying degrees of accuracy and reliability.

Deciding which methods to use requires balancing these different factors (see Box 5-4). When you examine the consequences of a particular performance question or indicator, you may need to change it if it is impractical or too expensive. This includes looking at who will be using the method and how often it will be applied. For example, if you have no existing capacity to use your preferred method, you need to plan training � or choose another method if you have no resources for this.

Frequency of collection also needs to be established. This will vary per question and indicator. If data for one critical indicator needs to be collected often, then you may need to reduce the frequency of another less important indicator or delete it altogether. Methods are considered in detail in Section 6 and Annex D.

Box 5-4. Balancing cost, type of information and extra benefits

Suppose your performance question is "What improvements have there been in household food security as a result of the project�s activities?" You will need to know two main pieces of information:(1) the types and extent of changes in food security as experienced by the target households and (2) the extent to which these changes can be attributed to the project. This type of information would not be analysed very often, as it would only change slowly. So a survey once every two years or so should give you an indication of changes.

To gather information on food security changes you could consider three different methods: (1) a detailed household survey conducted by independent researchers, (2) a participatory assessment process where women household members do their own monitoring and discuss their findings, or (3) focus-group meetings to discuss changes that specific social groups have experienced. The first method would be the most resource intensive but may yield the most quantifiable outputs. If well facilitated, the second method can also yield precise results but at a lower cost than the first method and perhaps with interesting discussions from which new ideas emerge. An extra advantage of this method could be better understanding about the project by village women. The third method would yield the least precise and least quantitative information but would be the least resource intensive. Before embarking on resource-intensive data-collection exercises, carefully consider whether a simpler method would yield sufficient information of good enough quality for your purposes.

5.3.7 Step 5. Identifying the Necessary Practical Support for Information Gathering

For a method to lead to the information you require, you will need to organise the conditions to make it work. These are often forgotten in the focus on identification of indicators but are critical to success. For each method, consider if and how you need to:

develop forms to record data;
develop forms, filing systems and databases for collating and storing information;
train staff, partners or community members who will be involved;
check and validate data;
organise external M&E or research expertise that may be needed;
agree on responsibilities for different tasks;
ensure everyone has sufficient financial resources and equipment.

This topic is dealt with in detail in Sections 6 and 7.

5.3.7 Step 6. Organising Analysis, Feedback and Change

In the rush to get out and start collecting data, many M&E units pay insufficient attention to the process of using the information for analysis and directing changes in the project.

To make sure that data will be used � and not just collected � think about how you will organise the analysis of information for each performance question. Sometimes a performance question cannot be answered without prior analysis of several bits of information. Who will do it? When will it happen? Also consider what form information should be in so that it can be used by different stakeholders. For example, will it be useful to present information visually, in graphs or maps? Or do you need to organise several community meetings to get more feedback on the initial analysis of the information?

Most importantly, consider how the generated information can be used to check progress and make improvements as the project proceeds. This topic is discussed in Sections 6 and 8.

5.4 Being Guided by Performance Questions

5.4.1 What Is a Performance Question?

At project start-up, most projects will move straight into identifying quantitative indicators after revising their objective hierarchy of the logframe matrix (see 3.3). This commonly results in long lists of quantitative indicators that focus only on targets, leaving out other information essential to explain the resulting numbers. Without understanding the "why", it is difficult to adjust the project strategy and operations to achieve more impact.

Instead, try starting by identifying the key questions � performance questions � that you need to answer for each activity and output and for the purpose and the goal. Focusing first on questions you can avoid being overwhelmed by indicators that, in the end, may not tell you what you really need to know in order to improve the project.

A performance question helps focus your information-seeking and information-analysis processes on what is necessary in order to know if the project is performing as planned or, if not, why not. Once you have your performance questions, you can more easily decide what information you need to track rather than what is nice to track.

A performance question makes it easier for you to analyse different kinds of information together by giving you a structure for combining the information. This is particularly important at higher levels in the objective hierarchy. Having a structure will reduce the problem of having different indicators from different levels in the objective hierarchy and not being able to figure out what is going on. Table 5.5 shows this clearly. Projects without the performance question will only have the information/indicators in the right hand column, which they then have to make sense of in relation to the goal, purpose or output.

Let�s take an example related to training, which can be found in most projects. Suppose one of your project objectives is "agricultural extension workers using more participatory approaches in their work with farmers". The related project activity might be "organise five 10-day training courses for a total of 60 extension workers". It is obviously easy to keep track of the number of courses run, for how long and for how many participants. At the output level, you could simply add up the number of extension staff who have received training in participatory methods. But you are probably aiming to improve the extent to which these participatory methods are actually used in the field and, then, the contribution to farmers adopting improved farming practices.

A quantitative indicator could be "the per cent of trained extension officers using participatory methods in the field". But to what do the terms "participatory" and "using" refer? It says nothing about the extent or quality with which the methods are being used so the indicator provides relatively useless information. In this case, a performance question is more useful. For example, "Are the trained extension officers using their participatory skills effectively in the field?" Self-reporting by extension agents about how their work in the field is progressing can be supplemented by reports from farmers with whom extension agents interact. Only by counting the numbers, by knowing how well the skills are being applied and how farmers value this change will you have an answer that helps you know if the project is being managed for impact.

Remember that the activity level in the logframe does not need indicators so performance questions will also not be needed at that level.

Table 5-5. Examples of performance questions and the link to information needs, including indicators

Example Objective

Examples of Performance Questions

Examples of Information Needs and Indicators

Goal: sustained improvement in the off-farm income of 135,000 poor households living in the Penkalingo lowlands

- What kinds of improvements have been made as a result of increased income opportunities facilitated by the project?

- Who has benefited from these improvements?

- Which target groups have not benefited?

- What is the likelihood that improvements will be sustained?

- What are the unintended negative or positive impacts of these enhanced income-generating activities (IGAs)?

- Types of improvements per target group

- Level of income changes (increase/decrease) per target group

- People�s own assessment of why incomes have increased or decreased

- Per cent of households who have not benefited

- Threats to sustaining income increases

- Negative impacts of IGAs (social, environmental, etc.)

- Other positive development impacts of IGAs

Purpose: enhance income-generating activities for the project target groups

- What types of income generation have been created?

- How many people have taken up which new IGAs?

- Types of IGAs created

- Number of people who are pursuing each IGA

- Types of IGAs for which people feel a need

Output 1: savings and credit services available to the poor improved

- Who has benefited from which type of services?

- Who has been excluded?

- Types of savings/credit services

- Numbers of people making use of each service

- Problems with services and their causes

-Numbers of target group excluded from each service

- Level of local capacity to sustain services

Output 2: entrepreneurial skills among participating households developed

- What types of skills have been improved among how many households?

- Is there a gender balance in skill development?

- Do these skills fulfil a need in the project area?

- Types of entrepreneurial skills developed

- Level of skills developed (women/men)

- Numbers in target group (women/men) with new skills

- Numbers of target group excluded from skill development and the causes of this

- Local demand for new skills developed

5.4.2 Working with Performance Questions

Project staff are so used to immediately diving into indicators that at first they might find it a bit confusing to focus on performance questions beforehand. The following question can help you find a good performance question for each level of the objective hierarchy:

The performance questions you identify may be quite simple. For example, at the "activity" level in the objective hierarchy, all you need to do is find out if the activity has been carried out well and on time. Also at the "output" level of the objective hierarchy you will often be able to limit the questions to a few that are relatively easy to quantify. For example, in Table 5-5, the output level questions are "What types of skills have been improved among how many households?" "Is there a gender balance in skill development?" and "Do these skills fulfil a need in the project area?"

At the purpose and goal levels in the objective hierarchy, the performance questions become more qualitative and more effective when posed along with other questions. This is because observable changes at these levels are the result of all the underlying activities or outputs. To assess performance at the purpose and goal level, you will need to consider the interactions between the changes at each level and whether the changes you see can be attributed to project activities or outputs.

One particularly important type of performance question concerns projects trying to innovate how they deliver certain activities or outputs. Learning by trying out new ways of working becomes vital. For example, the project might have planned to support the establishment of self-reliant water users� associations. But you might only discover the best way of doing this after several attempts and corrections. For example in the FODESA project, Mali, management will initiate annual participatory reviews and impact assessments in each community. They are sub-contracting this responsibility to NGOs and consultants. As it is a methodological experiment, important performance questions for FODESA could include "Do villagers feel that the sub-contractors are facilitating the participatory reviews well?" and "Is the information coming from these annual reviews helping guide the project strategy and operations?" In effect, this becomes a mini research project for FODESA. As it becomes clearer how best to do annual village reviews, the performance questions will change or even be eliminated.

Performance questions do not have to be elaborate � nor do you need many. The most basic types of performance questions are shown in Box 5-5. After the performance questions are agreed, then you can decide what information you need to answer them. This includes indicator identification.

Once you have drafted a list of performance questions, the next step is to identify what information is needed to answer the questions. First check if the question can be answered with a simple, reliable indicator. For activities and outputs this may be possible. If it is not possible (see Box 5-6), then you need to think more carefully about the different types of information you require to answer the performance questions. This will be the case particularly for the higher levels in the objective hierarchy � goal and purpose � where indicators are rarely able to provide the insights needed to judge outcomes and impacts.

Your first step will be to be completely clear about what information you need to answer your performance question. Do you want to know about changes in:

Box 5-7 describes an interesting framework that can help you identify the changes in which you are interested.

Irrespective of what information you seek, you will need to understand the reasons for the changes you observe. If these are different than anticipated, you will need to ask the question, "Why is there more or less change than anticipated?" in order to manage the project for better impact (see Box 5-8).

You are likely to need a variety of information to answer your performance questions (see Box 5-9), including:

Box 5-9. More than indicators in Uganda

As part of the DDSP programme in Uganda, the planning unit of each district�s local government is responsible for monitoring implementation progress and assessing impact. To fulfil these responsibilities, it seeks many kinds of information:

Physical and financial progress information so decisions can be made (or revised) about spending and resource distribution, helping keep the project functioning and within its budget.
Information on the distribution of project benefits, e.g., some people may benefit more than others. This is useful to groups wanting to monitor project equity and accountability.
The target population�s responses to the services and inputs being provided by the project. Such information can help ensure acceptability and usefulness of project activities.
Studies on the specific implementation problems a project faces so that the cause(s) can be identified and practical solutions recommended.
Information about the impact on the target population, especially on changes in quality of life and living standards (income, health, empowerment, relationship to environment, etc.).
Other evidence for compliance and accountability to meet donor requirements.

5.5.2 Different Kinds of Indicators

Indicators are the most common type of information associated with M&E. Table 5-7 describes different kinds of indicators.

Some indicators are simple and straightforward, particularly those that deal with measuring progress with activities, for example, "the number of kilometres of irrigation cannel constructed". Other indicators, such as the human development index (HDI), used by UNDP to rank all countries, compares people�s wellbeing via a combination of several weighed indicators. Table 5-6 shows examples of indicators for four common categories.

Table 5-6. Example of four common categories of indicators in rural development projects ⁴

Food Security

Poverty

Empowerment of Grassroots Institutions

Empowerment of Women

- change in food production

- change in cultivated area

- change in yields of staple food

- change in consumption of staples

- change in prices for staple food

- change in access to markets

- change in on-farm food storage capacity

- change in chronic malnutrition among children

- change in rate of stunting (under 5)

- change in household real income

- change in access to off-farm income

- change in access to capital

- change in access to labour

- change in access to irrigation facilities

- change in availability of basic needs services

- change in access to safe water

- change in access to basic education

- change in access to basic health services

- change in farmers� groups� participation in decision-making at project/local level

- change in autonomous farmers� group formation in project area

- change in grassroots ability to self-monitor and evaluate own progress

- change in capacity to market own products

- change in terms and conditions of marketing arrangements

- change in female enrolment in primary education

- change in number of women�s groups formed in project area

- change in number of loans approved /disbursed for women�s groups

- change in number of women�s groups accessing second and third loan

- change in number of women members of local production/service associations

- change in women�s decision-making capacity at household level

- change in women�s participation in decision-making at project/local level

Table 5-7. Examples of different types of indicators

Types of Indicators

Examples

Explanation

Simple quantitative indicators

- kilometres of roads built

- person-days of training in X subject conducted

- average yield from X crop in Y areas

This indicator requires only one measurement of a straightforward unit.

Complex quantitative indicators

- number of months for which households experience food shortages

Here there are a number of different bits of information involved. Months, households and types of food shortages. Without specifying

5.1 An Overview of Deciding What to Monitor and Evaluate