m2m M&E Workshop

Just a quick work update, since I think it’s high time I quit waxing philosophical about political issues I don’t actually have an entirely proper background for which to write about…

Last week at work Alisha organized a meeting for all of the m2m Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinators (MECs) from each country to get together in Cape Town for an M&E and data use workshop. Alisha was nice enough to let me participate, which was really interesting. The Monitoring and Evaluation aspect of m2m is rather new and is really just getting fully underway this year, with our current monitoring tools introduced about a year ago and Alisha hired last summer to be the International Monitoring Systems Coordinator. It has been very inspiring to watch it all come together and see the push for real data use in this organization. It might sound rather obvious that we should strive to use data to inform decision making and programmatic improvement (data use for external stakeholders and fundraising purposes aside), but it’s just not that simple – it’s a lot of work to establish a M&E system that allows us to not only generate data in the first place but to subsequently access and evaluate the information properly. I really enjoyed taking part in the meeting and seeing all of the MECs, many of them very new to the organization themselves, gain an understanding of the importance and role of their work and how to better use data. It was fun to listen to how passionate they were about their work and to watch them create connections with one another. On top of that, it was just plain fun to hang out with all of these people, hailing from different regions in South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, and Uganda. I went out to dinner with everyone a couple of times last week, and it was fun to hang out in social settings as well. I always find it so interesting to meet people from different cultures, and I also always find it very heartwarming to see how everyone wants to share things about their culture with you and to include you. Cliché, yes – but it’s the truth! The only setback was that, on the night we went to dinner at a place with African dancing, my participation was simply not an option. You should have seen them dance! African dance can be so complex. Yes, being white and American certainly makes me feel very, very lame sometimes! :)