Monitoring and evaluation for civic tech: Part 1
By: Merlin Chatwin
Tags: How We Work, Monitoring And Evaluation, Impact, Civictech, Code For Canada

Monitoring and evaluation for civic tech: Part 1

Hi! I’m Merlin, Code for Canada’s new Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Lead. I’m also an urban geography PhD candidate and Senior Fellow with the Centre for Urban Policy and Local Governance. Recently, I worked with the Ministry of Education and the Open Government office with the Province of Ontario. Before that, I spent four years working on local government reforms in Ghana.

Common themes through my professional and academic experience are leadership development, civic engagement and using monitoring and evaluation for learning.

I was introduced to the civic tech community through my research and work in open government, specifically inclusive civic engagement. I watched with interest as the movement gained traction in Ghana and I was excited to see there was momentum in Canada. I have been a friend of Code for Canada since the beginning, having interacted with their team through my work with the Open Government office in Ontario. And as part of a group that (re-)launched Civic Tech London, I’ve experienced the challenges of civic tech organizing first hand.

“I’m excited to work with thoughtful and civically-minded people across the country to figure out how we can use monitoring and evaluation to bring the civic tech movement to the next level.”

I’m passionate about civic participation, and I appreciate how technological tools can create new dialogue and engagement with a broad reach. The idea of civic-minded individuals using technology to improve interactions between the government and the public immediately intrigued me, but I felt out of place as a non-techy person.

I could only imagine that people who were non-techy and outside of the public sector would also feel intimidated. This, however, is where civic tech shines: its inclusivity. Techy people need non-techy people to make sure whatever the tools they are creating work for the greatest amount of people possible. While technology, and access to it, is potentially exclusionary, the civic tech community is an incredible balancing force.

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While still nascent, the civic tech movement in Canada takes a lot of its direction from similar movements around the world. But it feels right. Intuitively, we know that using technology to make engaging with government easier is a good thing. What’s missing is a sustained look at how it’s being done and what works the best.

Monitoring and evaluation are inherently about “proving” that what you as an individual, civic tech group, or an organization are doing, has an impact. It’s also about “improving” where and how you invest your resources, to maximize that impact (I use the word ‘impact’ in a broad sense, to reference making a difference). I know a lot of people are thinking this way, but inherently dealing with human behaviour, government systems, and the potentially far-reaching externalities of technology is messy.

“The risk here is limiting civic tech initiatives to those that can be counted, and missing the nuances of dealing with human behaviour and capacity building.”

Code for Canada is in a good position to take on the messiness of M&E within Canada’s civic tech movement. And to provide support to others seeking to better demonstrate the positive impact civic tech is having in Canada. I’m excited to work with thoughtful and civically-minded people across the country to figure out how we can use M&E to bring the civic tech movement to the next level.

I think being proactive and developing an internal approach to M&E is important to fend off imposed metrics from well-meaning, but uninformed external entities. Governments and funders generally prefer counterfactual approaches to M&E, but these are often inappropriate for civic tech initiatives. The metrics I see most often are website hits or the number of people who sign up for a program. The risk here is limiting civic tech initiatives to those that can be counted, and missing the nuances of dealing with human behaviour and capacity building.

I want to figure out the best ways to evaluate our work with a level of rigour that makes the results meaningful. I want to challenge (and invite others to challenge) our perceptions of what is possible. I don’t think experimental approaches, like randomized control trials, are appropriate for a lot of the work we do. But I’m open to having my perspective challenged, and I want to launch conversations with others interested in the field.

If you’re working on similar things, I’d love to connect. Send me a message at merlin@codefor.ca and we can chat!