M&E: The fifth dimension

Plans, activities, and monitoring. It should make up a whole, but does it? Development worker Morten Ranum, IATM, reflects

Is there a fifth perspective on this theme or are we just filling out space? Haven’t we said it all? We have discussed tools, shared experiences, encouraged, inspired and taken fears away. I think that there is still an element missing.

I think that we have a general problem with M&E. It seems that we are talking in abstract terms, when we speak about M&E. The everyday activities are very specific, but they are detached from the language of M&E. We have a similar problem with planning. Monitoring and planning are on the same level. That is why we are able to monitor plans, but when we want to connect plans and activities, a problem arises. Activities are detached from plans. On the other hand we can evaluate activities, but how will we judge them, and with which measurement?

A similar problem arises. We cannot measure detached levels. The aim is to compare plan and activity. But plans and activities are different.

We can imagine various types of solutions. We can try to make the two levels interact, or we can admit the conflict. Admitting the conflict means to choose which level we concentrate on.

We can only choose to concentrate on activities and the experiences they give us. We could forget about predefined objectives and abstract goals. Our guideline will be the accumulation of experience and that we will direct our focus. This is not a rejection of planning as such, but a strategy to ensure planning on the level where it belongs: On the activity level. We will not call it planning but experience generated action.

We should not think that running an organisation is any different from everyday life. It is all about people, people interacting and aiming for their dream to come through.