Why this matters
Indicators, baselines, targets and logframes appear in almost every M&E advert. They are the language projects use to agree, with donors and communities, what success looks like. If you can read and help build a logframe and calculate indicators from data, you can contribute to an M&E team from your first week.
What an indicator is
An indicator is a specific measure that shows whether a result is being achieved. "Safer drinking water" is a goal, not an indicator. "Percentage of surveyed households in the project communities that treat their drinking water" is an indicator: you can measure it. (This is an invented example; real projects take their indicator definitions from the project's own plan or the donor's guidance.)
Good indicators are often described as SMART:
- Specific: clear about who and what.
- Measurable: you can count or calculate it.
- Achievable: realistic for the project.
- Relevant: linked to the result it tracks.
- Time bound: with a clear period.
Each indicator needs a definition: exactly how to calculate it. For a percentage, write down the numerator (who counts as yes) and the denominator (who is included at all). Two officers using different denominators will report different numbers from the same data.