• Jo Tacchi, June Lennie
• UN Inter-agency Group on Communication for Development

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04 May 2011This document is an initial outline of “A Guide to Designing the Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Process for Communication for Development in the UN” (heretofore referred to as ‘the Guide’) that aims to provide practical and useful information to country-level UN staff and their programme implementation partners who are involved in designing and implementing research, monitoring and evaluation (R, M&E) of Communication for Development (C4D) programmes and initiatives. It also aims to provide a better understanding of the particular M&E needs of C4D programmes to ‘mainstream’ M&E specialists, managers and others in the UN. It has a particular focus on impact assessment since there is a significant need to increase the number and quality of impact assessments of C4D programmes.

This initial outline of the Guide was prepared as part of the UN Inter-agency R, M&E Resource Pack for C4D Programmes project which was funded by UNICEF and conducted in collaboration with Teresa Stuart and Paula Claycomb from UNICEF’s C4D Unit in New York. This Guide draws on a major literature review and consultations with 11 C4D Focal Points or M&E specialists from seven UN agencies and a 15 member Expert Panel (see Lennie & Tacchi, February 2011). They provided suggested revisions to a draft of this Guide which was discussed at a series of meetings at UNICEF headquarters in New York in December 2010.

There are many different approaches to designing R, M&E and many valuable M&E Guides that already exist. Those consulted agreed that it would be better not to create another toolkit and to take a ‘less is more’ approach. They felt that it was important not to duplicate existing resources but to include recommendations for high quality evaluation tools and Guides such as ‘Essentials for Excellence’ (Parks et al., 2008).

This Guide requires further development through a process of consultation and testing with country-level UN staff and their partners in appropriate pilot sites. We envisage that it will be continually revised and updated as it is used and feedback on its usefulness is obtained. This process needs to be dynamic and flexible and appropriate to the focus and local context of the programme and local culture, social norms and capacities.

We envisage that it would be based on the R, M&E for C4D framework and the principles for effective, appropriate and sustainable R, M&E of C4D outlined in Lennie and Tacchi (2011). This framework and associated principles have been simplified for this initial outline and would be referred to throughout the final version of the Guide. They can be adapted as necessary. Feedback on the framework and principles will need to be sought from a sample of users of the Guide and revisions made as necessary. The aim here is to increase ownership of the R,M&E for C4D process so as to increase its success in terms of staff and community participation, inclusion and empowerment and strengthened evaluation capacities.

This Guide can be seen as part of an ongoing, long-term capacity development process, which was identified as a key need in our consultations. Those we consulted suggested that this Guide could be used in conjunction with an internal ‘Ask an Expert’ site on the internet and the development of an online community of practice.