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Market systems development for Decent Work: the Lab – Phase II - Final evaluation
- eval_number:
- 3210
- eval_url:
- https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/3210
- lessons_learned:
- themes:
- theme:
- Results-based management
- category:
- Organizational issues
- comments:
- The ILO / Lab team / project staff / donor
- challenges:
- Monitoring and results measurement can be resource intensive. Measuring influence is difficult, and as influence often takes time, quick feedback is not often apparent even with a strong monitoring system. Monitoring can be subjective. However, without a clear link between activities and expected outcomes, there is a high risk of achieving activity and output targets without them yielding impact.
- success:
- Key strategic pivots and effective adaptive management emerged from rigorous review against the Lab’s objectives, particularly following the mid-term evaluation. This contributed to a stronger performance in the second half of Lab 2.
- context:
- Lab 2 monitored project performance and results against its logframe, which was kept regularly updated. An attempt was made to flesh this out into a results chain and associated indicators, but it was not used for ongoing monitoring and results measurement in part because there was not a strong Theory of Change in the project design, and in part because measuring ‘influence,’ particularly across a diverse set of objectives and activities, is very difficult. Robust monitoring against a Theory of Change can quickly provide feedback on activities that are not having the expected impact. This is all the more important when the objective is complex and requires frequent reflection.
- description:
- Results-based adaptive management is as important for objectives like “influence” that are difficult to measure, as it is for more tangible objectives. A robust measurement system tied to a clearly articulated Theory of Change is crucial to drive evidence-based learning and adaptation.
- administrative_issues:
- N/A
- url:
- https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/231983
- location:
- country:
- Inter-Regional
- region:
- Inter-Regional
- eval_title:
- Market systems development for Decent Work: the Lab – Phase II - Final evaluation
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