Beyond “one-size-fits-all”: Fit-for-purpose M&E in the South African context

Fit-for-Purpose Monitoring and Evaluation in South Africa

Measurement of performance and impact is essential for all development stakeholders looking to bring about meaningful social change.

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) or impact management and measurement (IMM) provides us with a structured way of understanding what a social investment is achieving. However, our efforts to measure success are meaningful only if they are appropriate for the real-world context in which they are being applied.

Challenges in the South African Context

The misalignment between funder M&E requirements and the capacity and capabilities of non-profit organisations (NPOs) to meet those requirements is a prevalent challenge within the South African context. While this may be less true for well-established organisations with diverse funder bases, it remains the case for man community-based organisations (CBOs), which are typically operating at a grassroots level with extremely limited resources. At the same time, top-town approaches to M&E can be extractive in nature, with the effort put into M&E having clear benefits for the funder without obvious benefit for the NPO. This forms the basis of a relationship that prioritises upwards accountability to the funder over downwards accountability to the grant recipient or end beneficiaries.

In this situation, NPOs (especially poorly resourced CBOs) often struggle to meet the requirements of social investors, while social investors face the difficulty of not being able to measure and report on the impact of their investments in accordance with their expectations and reporting requirements of stakeholders. It is easy for this to lead to impact washing (making false or under supported claims of achieving impact) without fostering meaningful reflection and improvement.

The Benefits of M&E

Despite the challenges associated with it in practice, however, M&E has intrinsic benefits: it helps to formalise reflection and learning, promote continual improvement, and enhance accountability. Where challenges arise is in a model of engagement that prioritises the funder’s needs over those of the recipients.

Four Considerations for Fit-for-Purpose M&E

Speaking at a webinar hosted by Tshikululu in July 2024, South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA) board member Mishkah Teladia shared four key considerations that make M&E fit-for-purpose:

1. Complexity-aware M&E and incorporating a systems lens, which entails embracing complexity in M&E practices to better understand dynamic environments. As Tshikululu, our approach to M&E is grounded in developing an understanding of the geographic and socio-economic context of a social investment, which informs the development of the strategy and theory of change. Based on our experience, we have a keen sense of the potential complexities and inter-related issues, and can plan accordingly.

2. Decolonial approaches to M&E, which recognise diverse ways of knowing and are conscious of power imbalances in the funding relationship. For example, we recognise the importance of quantitative data in understanding the impact of a social investment, but at the same time, we aim to gather relevant qualitative data that gives insight into the actual experiences of the implementers and beneficiaries. Numbers alone are not always adequate to capture the nuances of the context or the unexpected effects of an investment.

3. Adaptive management in M&E, which prioritises iterative decision-making and continuous learning and adaptation to enhance effectiveness. This means building flexibility into our approach to M&E, and gathering all the data we need for meaningful decision-making. Continuous monitoring and engagement with implementing partners allows us to have up-to‑date information and make changes as needed to achieve greater impact.

4. Localisation and participatory M&E, which aims to ensure that ownership of M&E is held by local stakeholders to make the process more meaningful to those most affected. Tshikululu priorities co-creation in M&E (for example, developing a theory of change with the participation of the client, implementing partners, and key local stakeholders, where relevant). We recognise that effective impact measurement relies on shared ownership of M&E, and that it has to prioritise the needs of those who will ultimately benefit from the investment.

Defining Fit-for-Purpose M&E

Fundamentally, M&E needs to provide timely information for decision-making, which has implications for how we define the minimum viable elements of M&E in a resource-constrained setting. A fit-for-purpose approach must take into consideration who the decision-makers are and what information they need, to ensure that M&E answers the right questions.

Our experience as Tshikululu has borne this out: we have found that, to be considered fit for purpose, M&E must be based on a thorough understanding of the context and be implemented through mutually beneficial partnerships. In practice, for social investors this means:

Taking the context and all relevant stakeholders into consideration from inception;
Resourcing effectively to promote success, including investing in research to understand the context, establish baselines and evaluate impact;

Taking a participatory approach to M&E that encourages co-creation and shared ownership;
Being open to flexibility and adaptation to meet the needs of all stakeholders;

Putting learning and reflection at the centre of M&E; and

Committing to upwards and downwards accountability.

Accountability and transparency are fundamental to building trust in the sector and in our often contentious social and political climate. There is a need for a balanced approach, such that organisations doing social impact work on the ground are not burdened by unnecessarily onerous M&E requirements, complicated tools and the expectation of readily available, unplanned capacity. Amidst these tensions, there is a clear role for specialists like Tshikululu that understand funder contexts as well as communities and can mediate between them. The more we can create shared understanding for mutual benefit, the closer we are able to come to an approach to M&E that is truly fit for purpose.