11/04/2020 What are the different types of monitoring and evaluation?

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Blog / By TolaData / May 28, 2019 / 7 minutes of reading Recent Posts

5 reasons why monitoring &

evaluation is good for NGOs

What is Monitoring and Evaluation

(M&E)?

Using multiple data collection tools?

Here’s how to integrate your dataset

In conversation with M&E Specialist

Sarah Ulrich

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan

for NGOs

7 monitoring and 10  

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evaluation types to boost  Sign up for free tria

your M&E strategy

May 28, 2019

Did you know that monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are classi ed into
di erent types based on the purpose, focus, timing and audience of the
assessment? In this article, we have attempted to explore the variety that is
commonly used in the development and humanitarian sector to help you
plan and execute your M&E more strategically.

Great news is, the variations of monitoring and evaluation are not
mutually exclusive, which means that they can be used in di erent
combinations to leverage the full potential of your project.

Before we jump into the types, let’s quickly explore how monitoring
di ers from evaluation.

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Monitoring
Monitoring is an ongoing process. It
begins and ends with the project cycle.
Monitoring tracks the project
interventions, and everything else that is
happening in a project in terms of human
resources, budget, materials, activities
and outputs, and collects information
pertaining to these elements.
Monitoring provides information about
the current status of the project and helps
to determine immediate remedial actions.
7 types of monitoring to get you started
1. Process monitoring
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What are the different types of monitoring and evaluation? | TolaData
Evaluation
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Evaluation is conducted at speci c points
within the project cycle and even after
project completion.
Evaluation conducts an in-depth
assessment of the activities tracked by
monitoring and gauges how well they
performed and what di erence they
made. In other words, it analyses success
against the objective to determine the
impact, sustainability, e ectiveness and
e ciency of the project.
Evaluation provides information and
recommendations for long term planning
and lessons for organizational growth and
success.
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This is often referred to as ‘activity monitoring.’ Process

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monitoring is implemented during the initial stages of a project
as its sole purpose is to track the use of inputs and resources,
along with examining how activities and outputs are delivered.
It is often conducted in conjunction with compliance
monitoring and feeds into the evaluation of impact.

2. Compliance monitoring

Just as the name suggests, the purpose of compliance

monitoring is to ensure compliance with donor regulations,
grant, contract requirements, local governmental regulations
and laws, ethical standards, and most importantly compliance
with the expected results of the project. The need for
compliance monitoring could arise at any stage of the project
life cycle.

3. Context monitoring

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Context monitoring is often called ‘situation monitoring.’ It

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tracks the overall setting in which the project operates. Context
monitoring helps us identify and measure risks, assumptions,
or any unexpected situations that may arise within the
institutional, political, nancial, and policy context at any point
during the project cycle. These assumptions and risks are
external factors and are not within the control of the project,
however, context monitoring helps us identify these on time to
in uence the success or failure of a project.

4. Bene ciary monitoring

This type of monitoring is sometimes referred to as ‘Bene ciary

Contact Monitoring (BCM)’ and the need for this may arise at
any stage of the project cycle. Its primary purpose is to track
the overall perceptions of direct and indirect bene ciaries in
relation to a project. It includes bene ciary satisfaction or
complaints with the project and its components, including their
participation, treatment, access to resources, whether these 

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are equitable, and their overall experience of change.

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Bene ciary monitoring also tracks stakeholder complaints and
feedback mechanism.

5. Financial monitoring

The main purpose of nancial monitoring is to measure

nancial e ciency within a project. It tracks the real
expenditure involved in a project in comparison to the
allocated budget and helps the project team to form strategies
to maximize outputs with minimal inputs. This is often
conducted in combination with ‘process’ and ‘compliance’
monitoring and is crucial for accountability and reporting
purposes.

6. Organisational monitoring

As the name suggests, organisational monitoring tracks

institutional development, communication, collaboration,
sustainability and capacity building within an organisation and 

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with its partners and stakeholders in relation to project

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implementation.

7. Results monitoring

This is where monitoring entwines with evaluation. It gathers

data to demonstrate a project’s overall e ects and impacts on
the target population. It helps the project team to determine if
the project is on the right track towards its intended results and
whether there may be any unintended impacts.

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10 types of evaluation to put you on the Sign up for free tria

right track 

1. Formative evaluation

This is generally conducted before the project implementation

phase. But depending on the nature of the project, it may also
continue through the implementation stage. Its main purpose
is to generate baseline data to investigate the need for the
project, raise awareness of the initial project status, identify
areas of concern and provide recommendations for project
implementation and compliance.

2. Process evaluation

It is conducted as soon as the project implementation stage

begins. It assesses whether the project activities have been
executed as intended and resulted in certain outputs. Process
evaluation is useful in identifying the shortcomings of a project
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while the project is still ongoing to make the necessary

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improvements. This also helps to assess the long-term

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sustainability of the project.

3. Outcome evaluation

This type of evaluation is conducted once the project activities

have been implemented. It measures the immediate e ects or
outcomes of the activities in the target population and helps to
make improvements to increase the e ectiveness of the
project.

4. Summative evaluation

This occurs immediately after project conclusion to assess

project e cacy and the instant changes manifested by its
interventions. Summative evaluation compares the actual
outcome data with baseline data to determine whether the
project was successful in producing the intended outcomes or
bringing about the intended bene ts to the target population. It
provides evidence of project success or failure to the 

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stakeholders and donors to help them determine whether it

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makes sense to invest more time and money for project
extension.

5. Impact evaluation

Impact evaluation assesses the long term impact or behavioral

changes as a result of a project and its interventions on the
target community or population. It assesses the degree to
which the project meets the ultimate goal, rather than focusing
on its management and delivery. These typically occur after
project completion or during the nal stage of the project cycle.
However, in some longer projects, this can be conducted in
certain intervals during the project implementation phase, or
whenever there is a need for impact measurement.

6. Real-time evaluation

Real-time evaluation is undertaken during the project

implementation phase. It is often conducted during emergency 

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scenarios, where immediate feedback for modi cations is

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required to improve ongoing implementation. The emphasis is
on immediate lesson learning over impact evaluation or
accountability.

7. Participatory evaluation

This type of evaluation is conducted collaboratively with the

bene ciaries, key stakeholders and partners to improve the
project implementation. Participatory evaluation can be
empowering for everyone involved as it builds capacity,
consensus, ownership, credibility and joint support.

8. Thematic evaluation

Such type of evaluation focuses on one theme across a number

of projects, programs or the whole organisation. The theme
could be anything, ranging from gender, migration,
environment etc.
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9. Cluster or sector evaluation

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Just as the name suggests, this evaluation is implemented by

larger development and humanitarian sectors, including a
group of di erent organisations, programs or projects that are
working on similar thematic areas. It assesses a set of
interconnected activities across di erent projects and entities.
As a result, it strengthens partnerships within these key
sectors, while improving their coordination, accountability,
predictability, and response capacity.

10. Meta-evaluation

This is used to assess the evaluation process itself. Meta-

evaluations could be useful to make a selection of future
evaluation types, check compliance with evaluation policy and
good practices, assess how well evaluations are utilized for
organizational learning and change, etc.

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Quick note: Monitoring is conducted by an internal sta member,

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whereas, evaluations, depending on its type, could be conducted by

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internal team members or external consultants/experts. Internal
evaluation could help build sta capacity and ownership but they may
be subjective at times. On the other hand, external evaluation brings
in a degree of objectivity and technical expertise and tends to be
more transparent and accountable.

The content in this article is based on the International Federation of Red

Cross and Red Crescent’s Project/Program Monitoring and Evaluation
Guide. 

Before we sign o , just a quick reminder that this list is not all-inclusive and
there are many more types of monitoring and evaluation practiced in the
development and humanitarian sectors. If you know of any additional types
that you would like to see on this list then do reach out to us and we’d be
happy to add them here. 

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8 thoughts on “What are the different types of monitoring

and evaluation?”

DR SAKA AKINADE ADEWUMI

JUNE 12, 2019 AT 6:36 AM

This is fantastic and educative

Reply

ANNABELLE CAJITA
JUNE 15, 2019 AT 12:58 AM

Good summary of the di erences and kinds of M&E.

Reply

ANONYMOUS
DECEMBER 17, 2019 AT 7:19 PM



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Does your site have a contact page? I’m having problems locating it but, I’d like to send you an e-
mail?  Sign up for free tria
Either way, great blog and I look forward to seeing it develop over
time.

Reply

CHANDANI
FEBRUARY 5, 2020 AT 10:50 AM

Thank you for your feedback! You can reach us on info@toladata.com or on the live chat
function at the bottom right-hand side of the page.

Reply

ANONYMOUS
DECEMBER 18, 2019 AT 9:24 AM

I wanted to thank you for this fantastic read!!

I de nitely loved every bit of it. I have got you saved as a favorite to
check out new stu you post…

Reply

CHARLES GULI
JANUARY 15, 2020 AT 7:02 PM
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Thanks for the great contribution you have made, I would like to know more about monitoring
and evaluations.  Sign up for free tria

Reply

CHANDANI
FEBRUARY 5, 2020 AT 10:41 AM

Thank you for your feedback! If you would like to learn more about the basics of M&E you
should check out this article: https://www.toladata.com/blog/what-is-monitoring-and-
evaluation/.

We would love to know what you think!

Reply

A. FRANKLIN C. FLOMO
FEBRUARY 20, 2020 AT 7:38 PM

Thank you very much, I’m interested in reading more on M&E.

Reply

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