Need assessment

A needs assessment helps to determine what needs to be accomplished to reach our clients’ project goals. This assessment of needs then informs a project’s overall plan and approaches by helping our clients identify targeted strategies and prioritize resources.
Needs assessments serve as incredibly powerful tools for decision making, resource allocation, and ultimately reaching programmatic goals. They can be utilized across a range of settings (e.g., community, school, and hospital, state) to shed light on a variety of topics. It’s important to conduct needs assessment at the onset of the project, so that programs are appropriately tailored to the individuals and communities our clients serve.

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)

Monitoring and evaluation is the process of regularly collecting data in order to identify successes, challenges, and areas for improvement. With this process, our team is able to measure the progress and effectiveness of projects we are working on. The monitoring process is ongoing, which helps the evaluating team to stay on track and make adjustments as needed. Evaluation enables our clients to learn from experiences, understand what works and what doesn’t, and make decisions about the future. Ultimately, monitoring and evaluation is key to any successful project. It involves setting goals and objectives in order to measure progress and track performance.
Our M&E approach follows the following stesps:

• Define the purpose and scope of the M&E system
• Stakeholder Mapping; beneficiary Identification
• Programme and M&E Design
• Defining the Theoretical Framework
• Defining the Logic, Mapping the Indicators
• Milestone Identification, planning and scheduling
• Designing the Instruments; selecting the tools
• Implement and Monitor
• Analyze
• Produce M&E report

Endline Evaluaiton

The purpose for the evaluation is to assess the performance of intervention undertaken by our clients and capture change over time of all baseline indicators from beginning to end of program implementation. The evaluation will determine to what extent projects has delivered effective, relevant, and timely activities to beneficiaries.
The evaluation will be complemented by a significant learning aspect for all stakeholders by providing concrete and actionable recommendations for future improvement.

Effectiveness:
Through end-line evaluation, we will seek to respond to the evaluation questions around effectiveness:

• To what extent have the planned objectives in the log frame of the project been reached, per indicator, disaggregated by sub groups?
• Did interventions reach the appropriate target groups and individuals within the target areas?
• To what extent have the project activities contributed to the overall goal
• What were the major factors and constraints influencing the achievement of the objectives of the project? What are the main reasons that the project provided or failed to provide to its target beneficiaries the assistance proposed at design stage?
• Have proper accountability and risk management framework(s) been in place to minimize risks on program implementation?

Satisfaction
It is important to include beneficiaries’ opinion on the quality of the services received.

• To what extent were beneficiaries informed about how to use the project assistance and services.
• To what extent were beneficiaries able to access the services?
• What challenges/barriers did the beneficiaries face while accessing the assistance/services?
• To what extent were participants faced with safety issues during their participation?
• How do beneficiaries perceive the relevance of the project to meet the project’s objective and how have the activities implemented improved their lives? Are there any stories of change?
• How satisfied are beneficiaries with the quality of the various components of the program (food security, wash and protection)?
• How has the collaboration between the partner and community stakeholders contributed to appropriate response and understanding of needs and priorities of the beneficiaries?
• To what extent was the project participatory in all the project cycle?
• How quickly and effectively were protection issues addressed?

Adaptability/Flexibility
The end line evaluation should assess the overall quality of the implementation.

• To what extent was project able to adapt and provide appropriate response to context changes and emerging local needs, and the priorities of beneficiaries?
• What mechanisms are in place to track project implementation of the project? (i.e. internal monitoring, evaluation, accountability, learning (MEAL) and quality assurance mechanisms)?
• How have they been utilized to increase quality within the project?
• What alterations were made (if any) to the program design in terms of collaboration during the implementation phase based on the reality on ground?
• To what extent did the project interventions contribute to build long-term community capacity?

Lessons
Our end-line evaluations shall also provide concrete and actionable recommendations based on the findings for areas to improve, gaps in delivery and beneficiary satisfaction, and improvement to program implementation that can be incorporated into future program design

• What lessons were learned regarding program design, targeting, and implementation?
• What opportunities exist within project to reach more beneficiaries with the available budget or to reduce costs while reaching at least the same number of beneficiaries without compromising quality?
• What were the best practices?
• How effective were the project management, systems, and processes established by the project?