MANAGING M&E ACTIVITIES

This module discusses how the manager of M&E activities can best ensure a quality process and product, and, ultimately, the best possible use of M&E conclusions, lessons, and recommendations. The manager is viewed as not just an administrator, but the facilitator of a process that begins by engaging the right stakeholders in focusing the M&E activity and ends by following up to promote use.

The first of the three parts of this module covers some key references and tools for the overall management of M&E activities. This includes a breakdown of steps in the process and a look at how terms of reference and (in the case of evaluation) professional standards can be used as management tools.

The second part focuses on defining and facilitating the role of different actors in the process - stakeholders, children, those who will actually carry out the M&E activity - and also covers multi-partite evaluation.

Part three focuses on the practical operational aspects of managing M&E in insecure settings.

Most of the sessions can be run in sequence, building up an overall picture. Alternatively, the final session in Part 1 is a detailed role play - in rapid assessment or evaluation - allowing participants a chance to bring all the management considerations together, especially the more detailed sessions in Parts 2 and 3, and apply these in a practical context.

The material in this module applies to management of one-off activities (e.g. surveys), not development of monitoring systems, which is covered in Module 2.

OBJECTIVES

• Participants can describe the contribution of and apply key references and tools in managing M&E activities.
• Participants can identify different kinds of participation of stakeholders, including children, as well as the implications for managing M&E activities.
• Participants can identify the basic operational issues linked to the design and management of M&E activities.

LINKS WITH OTHER MODULES

The context of an overall M&E plan as set out in Module 2 already covers issues of timing, purpose, and focus, which are critical in the management of individual M&E activities. (These are also covered more superficially in Module 1.) CM CHECK THIS PARA AS REWRITTEN. Module 3, Part 1 especially the session on Terms of Reference provides a useful starting point for Module 4 which provides an overview of the theoretical and practical considerations of designing M&E activities, including much greater depth on how the scope of an M/E activity is defined. Sessions in Module 4 also provide a basic starting point for more detailed sessions in subsequent modules: Module 5: Data gathering Module 6: Data analysis Module 7: Data sharing

CONTENT

3.1 - Managing the process

3.1.1 - Managing M&E activities for results - focus on use
3.1.2 - Terms of reference (TOR)
3.1.3 - Evaluation standards
3.1.4 - Role play - managing the process

3.2 - Who does what in M&E?

3.2.1- Stakeholder participtation
3.2.2 - Children participating in M&E activities
3.2.3 - Who are the M&E "experts"
3.2.4 - Collaborative evaluation

3.3 - M&E in unsafe areas

3.3.1 - M&E in unsafe areas