Strengthening MEAL and Knowledge Management
CARE works around the globe to save lives, defeat poverty, and achieve social justice.
In this section
We seek to transition from a period in which we have faced significant challenges in developing evidence and reporting on critical program focus and quality data (PIIRS), as well as managing knowledge effectively. The strategic shift in our portfolio away from solely humanitarian activities, which tend to be evaluated less rigorously, shorter in nature, and prone to high staff turnover, will assist in this planned transition. To strengthen our program- and project-level MEAL, we will:
- Follow a Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) framework and plan for our strategy.
- Institutionalize annual program reviews and planning meetings to assess program progress and initiate corrective action.
- Introduce After-Action Reviews for humanitarian projects, regular reviews of our humanitarian portfolio, and the use of longitudinal studies, thematic reviews, and post-project evaluations to build a strong body of evidence on our impact, and to support program development and learning as well as adaptive management.
We also plan to review our Knowledge Management processes and data management systems to identify measures to quickly improve the current status quo. Minimally, this will include establishing knowledge management measures and protocols to ensure information and knowledge is not lost on staff exit, but we will also explore enhancing our human resources to support knowledge management.
Our MEAL approach will also support our commitment to localization, prioritizing work with local actors, ensuring that evaluation methodologies are context-specific and informed by local knowledge, building connections with local monitoring and evaluation experts, and creating clear standards for local actor leadership in managing and using data related to development and humanitarian assistance.