fMEAL(2): Reimagining Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Through a Feminist Spectrum

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) is often presented as a technical process for collecting data, measuring results, and reporting progress. But how we measure change matters just as much as what we measure.

This module invites you to look at MEAL through a feminist lens and ask important questions:

• Whose experiences are being measured?
• Who decides what counts as change?
• Who owns the knowledge that is produced?
• And does the MEAL process give communities more power or simply extract information from them?

You will first explore how traditional approaches to MEAL typically work and why these approaches may not fully capture issues of gender, power, participation, and meaningful change. You will then explore the Feminist MEAL Spectrum, moving from gender-aware and gender-responsive approaches towards gender-transformative and feminist practice.

The module also looks at what Feminist MEAL means in practice, from involving communities in defining indicators and analyzing findings to strengthening accountability, protecting people’s time and knowledge, and creating opportunities for communities to use evidence for their own action and advocacy.

By the end of the module, you should be able to think about MEAL not simply as a process of counting results, but as an opportunity to support participation, learning, accountability, and transformation.