Challenges in planning, monitoring and evaluation

Indicators that accurately signify positive and long-lasting changes in children’s well-being can be very subjective, difficult to quantify, and vary between cultures. To address these challenges, War Child collaborates with other international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), universities, and networks, such as the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), to further develop instruments and tools to evaluate its programmes. In 2014, War Child will integrate internationally accepted indicators and monitoring tools in its revised results framework and core interventions, which are under development.

The revised results framework will clarify the types of activities War Child will implement, the outputs and short-term and longer-term outcomes we aim to achieve through these activities, and how they contribute to our four strategic objectives. Targets will be set for all outputs, and measurable indicators developed for all short-term and longer-term outcomes, which will be used across the organisation and continuously monitored.

Also under development, the core interventions will include clear step-by-step instructions for quality implementation, supported by resources such as training manuals and tools to monitor and evaluate project results. This standardisation will facilitate and improve our M&E at project level, enable aggregation of results at organisational level, and enable exchange and cross-organisational learning.

Furthermore a project approval committee will be put in place to review the quality of all new projects. This process will improve project plans, and ensure that projects are clear and more measurable and that there is agreement on how progress and results will be monitored.

Implementing monitoring systems in the field can be difficult. Registering data in a central system is time consuming and requires training for project and partner organisation staff to ensure that data gathered and entered is valid. In 2014, War Child will continue to provide training in planning, monitoring and evaluation and will further simplify the way outputs and outcomes are registered in our project administration system. To improve the data in the system, we will also make the system more user-friendly, and improve feedback through continuous data analysis.

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