MEL in Adaptive Programming: Expanding the State of the Art

Abstract

The Asia Foundation and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) hosted the Practitioner’s Forum on Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning in Adaptive Programming in Manila June 5-6. This gathering brought together more than 50 practitioners and advocates of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) in Adaptive Programs from all over the globe. These practitioners, with experience funding, managing, and implementing adaptive and complex programs, were imbued with purpose. How do programs learn to adapt and adapt to learn? How do programs produce meaningful outcomes in a complex and rapidly changing environment? The Forum didn’t arrive at any answers, nor did it devise new techniques for measuring results. What it did do, innovatively and uniquely, was to identify common issues in Adaptive MEL, and to facilitate knowledge exchange from many of the world’s leading thinkers in this space. The Forum analyzed what can work in certain situations. And in this way the Forum provided a snapshot of the Adaptive MEL, arguably advancing it. The Forum highlighted gaps in the traditional M&E approaches for adaptive programs. In complex environments where programs need to respond to change, MEL is no longer just a promising alternative to traditional M&E, but one of the pillars of adaptive programing. Change is constant, and MEL requires day-to-day sensing, probing, and responding. This is the essence of Adaptive MEL: learning informs decision-making at all times. Programs must embrace learning and ensure that learning permeates the system and processes of program management.