ABSTRACT
Assessing progress and achievements in capacity development is a challenge. The drive for accountability is pushing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of capacity development, and development in general, in two different directions that a practitioner needs to be aware of. One reflects a traditional results-based, log-frame approach to intentional change. The other relies on an open systems way of thinking, and the related interactive M&E methods.
In this chapter, David Watson acknowledges the merits of conventional results-based approaches but outlines their limitations when applied to more complex situations and to the multi-faceted nature of capacity itself. With extensive references to literature and cases available, he goes on to review examples of successful and innovative M&E methods and shows how these combine ‘the best of two worlds’. The range of insights, clues and references provided can help the reader to think through their present or improved M&E logics and practices.
