Monitoring and Evaluation in Sponsorship and Complementary Pathways for Refugees and Other People in Need of International Protection [EN/CA/DE/IT/NL]

SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS

• By providing a systematic approach to tracking a programme’s progress, gathering lessons, and fostering peer learning, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) can strengthen sponsorship and complementary pathways programmes in several ways. Chief among these, M&E can contribute to refining a programme’s design, improving its cost-effectiveness, supporting evidence-based decision-making, and creating a more positive experience for both beneficiaries (whether refugees or other people in need of international protection) and the volunteers or sponsors that support them, whether they be private individuals, universities, or companies.

• The most well-thought-out M&E processes are those that are built into the fabric of a programme’s design.
  Embedding M&E into a programme in this way should involve reflection on the programme’s goals at its outset, agreement on specific indicators to track these goals and the data needed to do this, and shared understanding of which stakeholders will be involved in these efforts and their roles.

• Incorporating M&E into programme budgets is key for ensuring that these efforts have the resources and sustained commitment they need to be effective and to go beyond one-off evaluations. At the same time, identifying existing tools, frameworks, and datasets can help a programme avoid unnecessary duplication of work and make the best use of resources.

• Effective multistakeholder coordination is vital at various stages of the M&E process. Developing a theory of change (that is, predictions about how the resources invested and activities designed will lead to the desired results) can help foster a shared understanding of goals and optimize M&E planning. Coordinating input from diverse stakeholders during data collection and analysis can help integrate different perspectives. And close communication among M&E leads, programme coordinators, and decisionmakers is crucial to ensure recommendations are implemented rather than remaining on evaluators’ desks.

• Greater engagement of beneficiaries and volunteers or sponsors in M&E is important. Their feedback can help ensure that M&E efforts are asking the right questions, measuring outcomes in a meaningful way, and enhancing programme design. Careful consideration should be paid to how engagement happens to ensure it is accessible and meaningful (for example, in regard to the time commitment and measures to overcome language barriers).