Task 14 - Renewing AgriCord's  M&E system AgriCord one-for-all: task 14

In October 2012 in Stockholm, the AgriCord Board approved the basic contours of the AgriCord M&E framework, commonly referred to as the 'Agricord M&e in four parts'. This four-pillar structure was examined and found appropriate by AgriCord's Advisory Committee, composed of leaders of farmers' organisations all over the world: “… Current monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is too much donor-driven, and should be developed as, and supported to become core business for every farmers’ organisation.
PME is win-win for both. Farmers’ organisations and agri-agencies should look for simpler approaches, that satisfy the needs of donors, but in the first place serve the development of the farmers’ organisation(s). And obviously, farmers’ organisations will only invest in impact M&E if this has a clearly perceived interest for themselves”
It now is a matter of connecting the dots into a coherent system, taking the opportunity to improve some of the concrete tools as well.

1.	Objectives of the task 

The objective of the task is to structure the management of the M&E system (i.e. both the knowledge and the responsible staff) within AgriCord in such a way that the following targets are met: 

-	An improved chapter on M&E in AgriCord´s 2014 document 
-	Instructions for reporting on the programme in 2013
-	The yearly publication of AgriCord´s Evidence of Impact (EoI) report, based upon evidence on household level
-       Monitoring protocol for the 14All programme

2.	Proposed activities 

The task consists of the following activities:

a.	Writing the aforementioned improved chapter on M&E, including (or referring to) an annotated manual for the M&E tools that are in place (stories, monitoring of targets and deliverables, profilings, evaluations) and the way they are to be reported and published. Proposals are forthcoming for reformulation or (slight) adaptation of the mentioned instruments.   
b.	Constructing a permanent improvement log for the tools that are in use: a forum for making proposals to improve or change aspects. 
c.	Monitoring the monitoring: making sure that information is entered in the system timely and according to the instructions referred to under (1)
 
Time line: 
Activity 1 and 2:
-	First version: mid-February 2014 (editing and coordination: Agriterra)
-	Consultations and testing of separate tools: until mid-March (staff from AA’s)
-	Final version(s) and improvement log: mid-March

Activity 3: permanent. 

3.	Envisioned outputs and outcomes 

On the outcome level, the participating agri-agencies should be able to boast a convincing system of results and monitoring, that is motivating for agri-agency staff in terms of up-to-date registration and use, and transparent and conclusive for other stakeholders (back donors, clients etc.). The 'indicator' for this outcome is the presence of a manual, including an improvement log (see below), ready by the end of March of 2014. In the words of the participants to an AgriCord/M&E meeting in October 2013: "Ownership of the tools and manuals must be ensured through a forum to discuss them, and through a procedure to suggest, agree and decide on updates/changes in the system." 

The document “AgriCord M&E in four parts” (see the Files under the Proposal tab) is leading. It contains virtually all the elements. Since the strengthening of farmers’ organisations and cooperative societies is the core business of agri-agencies, the cornerstone of their M&E should address that core business: are we being successful in it? Two elements of the system can give an answer to that question: the profiling tool (on the level of the organisations as a whole) and the deliverables (on the level of projects carried out by those organisations).

The sub-tasks, and therefore the expected outputs leading up to the above outcome, are described below, in descending order in the result chain:

Result level 4: Impact on societal level: this is taken care of by task 16. The tangible output is the book on family farms, producer organisations and (rural) development. Budget: p.m. (covered in project 6070).   	

Result level 3: impact on household level. The proposed tools (i.e., the output of the project) on this level are: 
a) harvested stories with added representativity and more rigorous methodology
b) annual ex-post evaluations of impact: (improved) standard TOR
c) on-going ex-ante evaluations of impact
There is a link here to the M&E systems at the level of the farmers' organisations, since it is in those systems that information is to be retrieved about how well the member households are doing in terms of income, productivity, etc. 

The tangible output consists of:
a) a new tool (format and instructions) for story harvesting
b) a new tool (format and instructions) for ex-post evaluations
c) incorporation of both in the aforementioned manual. 
d) systematisation (end 2014) of elements for M&E in farmers' organisations (see also project 5995 by Agriterra).  

Responsible staff: (a) Trias (Bart Casier e.a.; 10 days; task manager 5 days); (b) en (c) Jur Schuurman  (27 days) and Isabelle Martin (AFDI) (10 days); (d) Christine Plaisier (30 days) and Bart Casier (10 days).    

Result level 2: outcome, i.e. stronger organisations. On this level, the proposed tools are: 
- the profiling
- the deliverables/competences

The profiling will be converted to an interactive tool on agro-info.net. Part of the profiling scores will be based on the performance on deliverables, thus strengthening the link between the activities on project level (that contribute to higher scores on deliverables) and the organisational strength (as measured by the profiling). This will enhance the plausibility of the attribution claims by agri-agencies when it comes to their core business (organisational strengthening). 
The scores on deliverables will be made more objective, as a result of score on the targets that are part of them.  
    
Responsible staff: profiling (Jur Schuurman, Jose Levelink, outsourcing for technical preparation); development of scoring systems for targets and deliverables: Trias (Goethals/Stevens). 

Result level 1: output, as expressed by the project targets. These will have to be rephrased so that there is no accumulation of sub-goals within one target, because this makes them sometimes ambiguous. Also their  place in the system needs to be reconsidered in some cases (are they classified under the right deliverable?) Responsible staff: Christine Plaisier (10 days) assisted by José Levelink and Goethals/Stevens/Lenfant.

Improvement log: all of the above will be subject to permanent improvement on the basis of findings of the users, to be registered in an improvement log somewhat analogous to the ' wijzigingsregister'  (system for the registration of modificatons) that Agriterra employs in its quality system. This is the best way to ensure ownership by all agtencies involved. Ready by March 2014.

The relevance of all of the above for the strengthening of farmers' organisations has two dimensions. First, it will improve the agri-agencies' ability to measure current and future strengthening processes: the better we can do that measuring, the better we will also be able to cooperate in the strengthening activities, because they will be based on the (measured) facts. Second, farmers' organisations themselves will be enabled to further promote a culture of fact-based decision-making in their midst, since they will be involved in two ways in this trajectory: in the actual making of profilings, and in the development of their own M&E systems. 

An additional activity in the framework of this task will be the elaboration of a monitoring protocol in order to satisfy backdonor's  reporting requirements. The protocol will include both the tasks of component 2 and the projects in component 1. 

4.	Involvement of other agri-agencies

•	discussion and modification/approval of draft TOR in Montpellier (11-12 November, 2013)

Contact persons in other agri-agencies are, as of December 2013: Martin Couture (UPA-DI), Maarten Goethals (Trias), Steven Lenfant (FERT), Isabelle Martin (AFDI).

They will have to make sure that the new tools will be used intensively in the first 3-4 months of 2014, for finetuning and improvements. 

5.	Budget (July 2013 – December 2014)

Personnel costs	
Jur Schuurman (Agriterra) 30 days 
Other staff (Christine Plaisier) at Agriterra 40 days 
Bart Casier (Trias) 20 days 
Bart Stevens (Trias) 50 days 
Maarten Goethals (Trias) 20 days
Isabelle Martin (AFDI) 10 days
steven Lenfant (FERT) 20 days
Subtotal: 90.632 EUR (requested: however, the maximum available for a level 1 project is 70.000 - see budget tab and ´Other Remarks´ in Memo tab). 

Translations	30.000
Testing missions (profiling) 5000

Construction and modifications on agro-info.net: see task 12. 

Publication costs of a 'popularised' manual on AgriCord's M&E framework: 2000. 

TOTAL: EUR 107.000 (See the budget under the Proposal tab) 

6.	Proposed team leader 

Jur Schuurman, senior management advisor at Agriterra. 

7.	Aid efficiency and development effecrtiveness 

'To measure is to know': efficiency and effectiveness in development efforts  are discussed in vain if no data are avaliable to suppot the statements and arguments, and if no goals are set in terms of which those data are collected. AgriCord aims to lead the way to a development cooperation culture in which aid is given (or not) and discussed on the basis of facts. Mutual and external accountability is the key word here.

At the same time, facts and data are not everything. More qualitative assessments are also in order. But they become rather meaningless if the reality on the ground to which they refer is not clear; if there is no information available.

By including also the farmers' organisations in this project, relevance and ownership are obviously increased, and a common perspective (between agri-agencies and farmers' organisations) will gradually become more and more reality as the respective visions converge on what results we aspire to, and how we should register them.

to structure the management of the M&E system (i.e. both the knowledge and the responsible staff) within AgriCord in such a way that the targets are met