What is Monitoring and Evaluation?
There is a wide range of factors that could be monitored. Review this page to learn what are the most important for your context and what a M&E Plan includes in the context of a Water Fund.
Video
What is most important to monitor and why?
Jonathan Higgins from TNC describes key ideas about where to focus investments in monitoring
What is monitoring?
Monitoring is the act of systematically collecting information about something over time and space to characterize its state and to identify changes (see Water Funds Monitoring Primer).
Monitoring requires expertise not only in the methods for designing scientifically-robust monitoring programs, but also in the various instruments, techniques, and software needed to properly collect, manage, and communicate pertinent data (see A Guide to Monitoring and Evaluating Water Funds).
Video
What are the basic types of monitoring that are used for Water Funds?
Paulo Petry • The Nature Conservancy
What is a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan?
A Monitoring and Evaluation Plan details the rationale, strategies, and costs for monitoring and evaluating the various projects being implemented by a Water Fund, and then links those to learning activities that will help managers to adaptively manage those projects. Several excellent Monitoring and Evaluation Plans from existing Water Funds are showcased below.
Key Guidance Documents
A Primer for Monitoring Water Funds
This document highlights the critical information needs common to Water Fund projects and summarizes issues and steps to address in developing a Water Fund monitoring program. It explains key concepts and challenges; suggests monitoring parameters and an array of sampling designs to consider as a starting-point; and provides suggestions for further reading, links to helpful resources, and an annotated bibliography of studies on the impacts that result from activities commonly implemented in Water Fund projects.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Water Funds
The purpose of this document is to bring together over a year of collaborative effort in designing scientific protocols for monitoring the impacts/outcomes of the water fund strategy which is rapidly replicating and proliferating throughout TNC priority sites. Water funds have a variety of subject-area goals related to hydrology, biodiversity, socioeconomic, governance, and financial themes. This document will: 1) Briefly introduce the basic water fund model; 2) Provide a framework for linking water goals and strategies to measures of actions and outcomes; 3) Present an experimental design for measuring water fund impacts; and 4) Develop a set of more detailed protocols with experimental questions and potential indicators (summarized in a series of look-up tables) that could be used to test water fund activities’ effectiveness. In some cases, example methodologies will be offered (in appendices).
A Guide to Monitoring and Evaluating Water Funds
Water funds are a compelling idea, but after more than a decade of implementing them, we have little evidence that water funds truly benefit people and nature. To move from faith to fact, we need evidence, and this requires what is sometimes called “measures” but what is more widely (and accurately) known as “monitoring and evaluation.” This is a guide for monitoring and evaluation of water funds. It is aimed at designers of new water funds and managers of existing water funds. It is a blend of monitoring and evaluation guidance, new ideas, and sage advice.
Useful Examples
Be sure to search the Library for further monitoring-related documents.