ASSESSING YOUR WORK

Those of us working in immunisation, global health and development are facing increased demands to show evidence of performance, accountability, results and impact of our work.

Too often as communicators and advocates, though, we avoid or minimise the value of monitoring and evaluation, or M&E. We may find it cumbersome, time-consuming or tedious. We may think it’s impossible to monitor and evaluate advocacy efforts – how do you know whether a decision was really made because of your messages or efforts?

But in addition to reporting on results, you need to know how your strategy and plans are going: what’s going well, what might be improved, or where best to put your resources going forward. You may want to share successes and lessons learned with colleagues and partners, and have them do the same with you.

And if you want to have more credibility as advocates and communicators, and have your organisation’s support and resources, you will need to show that your work has value and makes a difference.

In the ASSESS module, you will learn:

• Understanding Monitoring and Evaluation and why it is important.
• How to build a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework that supports your advocacy strategy.
• How to use the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework to assess your efforts.

So, in fact, assessing your work through monitoring and evaluation (or M&E) is as much for you as for your boss, your organisation or a funder. We are ultimately the beneficiaries of good assessment, and it needs not be costly, time consuming or difficult.