Why this matters
Many data jobs in northern Ghana sit inside monitoring and evaluation teams. NGOs, development programmes and government projects working on farming, water, health, education and livelihoods all need to show what they are doing and whether it is working. M&E officers and assistants collect that evidence, check it and report it to managers and donors. If you understand the ideas in this section, M&E adverts will start to read like a description of skills you already have.
Monitoring and evaluation are different
Monitoring is regular tracking while a project runs. Are activities happening on time? How many farmers were trained this month? How many boreholes were repaired? Monitoring answers "are we doing what we said we would do?"
Evaluation is a deeper look at specific points, often at the middle or end of a project. Did the training actually improve harvests? Did repaired boreholes reduce time spent fetching water? Evaluation answers "is it making a difference, and why?"
Monitoring happens all the time and is often done by junior staff. Evaluation happens less often and may involve outside specialists, but it relies on good monitoring data.
The results chain
Most projects describe their logic as a chain:
- Inputs: money, staff, seeds, materials.
- Activities: what the project does, such as training sessions.