AGRA's Monitoring & Evaluation

AGRA’s Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system collects, analyzes, manages, and reports on data and information that is used to:

· Monitor progress towards outcomes;

· Inform the management of portfolios of grants;

· Facilitate the testing of key assumptions within the AGRA strategy, programs, and grants;

· Systematically capture lessons learned from successes and failures;

· Manage risk, and

· Evaluate how AGRA and its partners’ investments contribute to agricultural development in countries and breadbasket areas, and improve the lives of smallholder farmers.

AGRA’s results-based M&E system will ensure that data and information are routinely used to inform decisions and practice for AGRA, its partners and its funders. The system is designed to reflect AGRA’s strategy and as such, initially, has the most comprehensive approach to M&E in AGRA’s priority high-potential breadbasket countries.

Current and Ongoing M&E Work:

· The M&E Unit has commissioned six firms to undertake baseline studies that will capture a range of indicators and contextual factors in 13 African countries in which AGRA works. The M&E Unit expects the final country reports to be ready by the end of the first quarter 2010.

· A forthcoming Mid-Term Review of PASS, scheduled to start in early 2010, will provide lessons to help shape future policy directions and the implementation strategy of PASS and other programs.

· The M&E Unit works closely with all AGRA programs in the preparation of annual work plans and in setting key performance targets for milestones, outputs, outcomes and impacts. The Unit will conduct follow-up tracking and focused studies to assess progress and identify areas for improvement.

· The Unit is instrumental in working with grantees to ensure that grant proposals contain mechanisms for tracking data and information at the grant, country and program levels.

Implemented by AGRA staff, expert consultants, and country partners, AGRA’s M&E system is designed to serve the needs of AGRA and contribute to broader knowledge and learning in the agriculture sector. The M&E system is AGRA’s central lever for accountability as well as for learning in order to support continuous improvement.