Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)

IMPORTANT: If you are using a mobile device, take the course on landscape mode to enable you to navigate the learning content seamlessly

Effective development work is not only about implementing activities. It is also about understanding whether those activities are producing meaningful change, how that change can be measured, what communities are saying about the process, and how evidence can be used to improve our work.

This course introduces learners to key concepts and practices in Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL), while encouraging them to think critically about how measurement and evidence are used in women’s rights and gender-focused programming.

You will begin by building a practical foundation in performance measurement and then move into a feminist approach to MEAL that questions whose knowledge is valued, who participates in measurement, and how MEAL processes can contribute to rather than reproduce existing power inequalities.

The course is designed to help you move from understanding MEAL concepts to applying them in practice within your own programmes and organizational context.

What You Will Learn

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Explain the purpose and key components of a Performance Measurement Framework (PMF).
• Identify and develop appropriate indicators for measuring project results.
• Understand how baselines, targets, data sources, and data-collection approaches contribute to effective performance measurement.
• Apply key principles when developing and using a PMF.
• Understand why conventional approaches to MEAL may not adequately capture gender, power, and meaningful change.
• Explain the principles and spectrum of Feminist MEAL.
• Recognize how intersectionality, power, participation, and knowledge ownership can influence MEAL practice.
• Explore ways of making monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning more participatory and transformative.
• Reflect on how MEAL can better serve communities and support learning, accountability, and social transformation.