When we started the CoP, we were few. At that time it was not clear what the CoP was supposed to do. We agreed on certain principles that have guided us through this first year of existence. We need to understand clearly what our function as a community is going to be and what value we are going to add into the entire sweetpotato research system. This is now emerging. I wouldn’t say that we have done it perfectly, but we are learning. (Clesensio Tizikara, M&E Specialist – Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Ghana)
Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation Community of Practice (MLE CoP) started in 2015, with 16 members, drawn from five different organizations. Since then, the membership has grown to 35. The CoP members have diverse backgrounds: agricultural economics, value chains, gender, M&E, public health and agronomy. Its activities and discussions have emphasized building the collective capacity of the members, harmonizing members’ approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning and standardizing M&E methods. The 2016 CoP meeting held on 27- 29 April 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda, focussed on harmonizing strategies for household and yield data collection and the use of digital/mobile devices for data collection.
Christine Bukania spoke with some participants of the meeting to find out how their participation in the CoP was helping to build their MLE capacity.
It is my first time to attend an MLE CoP and it has been a learning process from the first day. Our project has just started. We are in the process of developing tools and undertaking baseline study. Not only is it a broad project that covers agriculture, nutrition and market linkages, but it also involves many partners. This meeting is helping me see clearly how I can link everything and draw from experiences of others. I have met other MLE staff who I had not interacted with before. I have learnt from people who already started implementing Feed the Future projects. When they talk about their challenges and how they overcame them, they give me courage for the task ahead. (Rose Chesoli, M&E Research Assistant -International Potato Centre, Kenya)
I was part of the inception meeting in Nairobi in 2015. We were not as many as we are today, but it was very interesting. We agreed then that we would identify areas where we encounter difficulties in our work and organize training to address them. During this meeting we have learnt about sampling and how to conduct our surveys so as to get good results. I can see that the MLE CoP has the ability to make me more effective and informed about the things that I do. It will help me to increase my productivity so that I can impact the lives of the clients and beneficiaries that I work with. (John Bidzakin, Agricultural Economist / Social economics – CSIR-SARI – Ghana)
Networking is important. I joined this CoP in September 2015 during the SPHI meeting. It has been interesting to connect with all these experts and learn how they handle data in their countries. I have picked up a lot of things that I think I will be able to implement in the field. (Koara Ibrahim, Project Manager – IDE, Burkina Faso)
When we started the CoP, we were few. At that time it was not clear what the CoP was supposed to do. We agreed on certain principles that have guided us through this first year of existence. We need to understand clearly what our function as a community is going to be and what value we are going to add into the entire sweetpotato research system. This is now emerging. I wouldn’t say that we have done it perfectly, but we are learning. (Clesensio Tizikara, M&E Specialist – Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Ghana)
M&E is not only about data, but also about observations made in the field. The good thing about working with extension agents, as we do in Mozambique, is that you learn more about your work. We are getting good learning experiences from this, but we still need to learn more about how we can use our monitoring data to improve learning. This CoP is a good opportunity to do that. Every time I come for the CoP meeting, it is a good reminder of what I still need to do to achieve my project goals. (Abdul Naico, M&E Specialist – International Potato Center, Mozambique)
These individual voices were echoed by the very positive collective evaluation of the meeting by the participants. Majority of participants identified learning and networking, in their end-of-meeting evaluation, as two of the aspects they liked most about the 2016 meeting and requested that more time be dedicated to the next MLE CoP meeting.
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