Over the past years of expert and evidence-based practice, Muthengo Development Solutions (MDS) has grown by each day to become an international learning hub for Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) for organisations and programmes, especially in the global south. We appreciate that any development initiative needs to be well planned, monitored, evaluated, and reported. Apart from being results-oriented, our confidence also lies in utilisation focussed approaches towards planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and learning. Our services include:
- Support for MEAL systems set up, implementation and review
- Supporting programme learning
- Conducting Evaluations and reviews
Support for MEAL systems set up, implementation and review
We are a mentoring and coaching hub for the development and execution of accountability systems (policies, frameworks, procedures, and instruments), for high-quality outcomes and evidence-based management. We therefore work with development partners to generate the necessary evidence, at the right time, by the right people and with the right people for effective decision making. Our approach works for both the new and established organisations or institutions. As such, for organisations new to MEAL, we walk them through the steps for setting up and implementing MEAL systems for their projects or programmes.
We also guide and facilitate reviews of MEAL systems to enhance adaptive management of programmes, strategies and policies. Our work involves capacity assessments, system diagnostic tests for relevance and appropriateness of indicators, data collection systems, data collation processes, storage and analysis. Our approach to reviews ensures MEAL systems are fit for capacities of institutions or organisations implementing the system (financial and technical) and that the MEAL system delivers value for money. We are also adept in developing complex aware MEAL systems that allow implementors the capacity to understand their programme complexity and make appropriate programme steering decisions.
With our ever-increasing repository, we have various tools and guidelines for institutionalising, planning (including costing and resource mobilisation), management and accountability (documenting, and reporting) of development practices. Our dynamic, motivated, and multidisciplinary team of experts is more than ready to support development institutions to increase knowledge, confidence, practice, and success in MEAL, through cost-effective short-, medium- and long-term partnership arrangements.
Supporting programme learning
We help facilitate learning with programmes and organisations. There is growing realisation of the need for organisations, particularly in the development sector to strengthen their capacities to learn and benefit from learning with the expectation of deeper understanding of the connectedness of processes contributing to the organisation achieving its objectives. The growth of the organisation is dependent on learning and its application to develop robust interventions in new programmes. Joint learning of partners (funder and implementing partners), increases sharing of ideas and knowledge, acquiring new knowledge and testing it in programming and management, strengthening relationships of partners, establishing what works and what does not work.
Our approach is to strengthen learning at the individual level where learning is about personal growth and development, increasing self-confidence and ability to solve problems, experimenting and piloting new ideas to improve effectiveness and performance. Organisational learning is the sum total of individual learnings whose impact is organisational transformation resulting in increased organisational performance. Our approach is also premised on:
- participatory working with partners in designing and developing programme for learning and developing TOC underpinning the leaning programme;
- collective agreement on actions of learning in the field and the support to be provided to remain on course;
- enabling critical analysis and discussion of issues to define learning questions for the learning programme;
- sensitivity to different interests of cohort and facilitating convergence of issues of interest; openness on issues of power and dominance and creating a level playing field; and
- allow partners to decide and agree on their participation in the process of learning.
Evaluations
We are a specialist evaluation firm with capacity to undertake a wide range of evaluations from complex policy, strategic, multiple intervention and multi-country programmes to less complex localised projects.