Monitoring: The slow cousin of evaluation, or an equal partner?

Abstract

Evaluators often regard monitoring as playing a secondary and relatively simple role compared to evaluation proper. This paper argues that this view underestimates the potential of monitoring information in enhancing the value of evaluative work, in particular to increase the ‘half-life’ of evaluation findings. Moreover, it suggests the possibility of a more dynamic interchange between monitoring and evaluation. Specifically, monitoring complements the fragmented and ad-hoc nature of evaluation work, so that the process of monitoring presents an opportunity to develop a framework within which individual evaluations can exist. Drawing on program logic and CMO theory, the key to this interchange is to build of systematic body of knowledge and theory that drives, and is in turn informed by, evaluation and monitoring. The work within the Department of Work and Income New Zealand provides an example of an attempt at implementing such a framework.