How tech is transforming M&E

As new technologies change how global development professionals approach their work, monitoring and evaluation in particular has already seen significant changes in how information is collected, analyzed, and shared. Technology is being used a lot more in M&E work, said Natasha Beale, assistant director of the monitoring and evaluation unit at The Asia Foundation. Traditionally, M&E was much more paper-based and involved sending copies of reports back to donors or entering data into Excel, Beale explained. These processes were inefficient and not always accurate, she added. What you see now, Beale continued, is more products for professionals to use for mobile data collection or, due to the increase in mobile penetration rates, more data coming directly from people on the ground via SMS or interactive voice response. There has also been an increase in the use of mapping technology for humanitarian work, which is allowing organizations to monitor security or human rights situations and locate incidents on a map, she explained. Researchers are doing analysis, using satellite imagery, and remote sensing imagery to better understand elements such as the effects of climate change, migration patterns, or agricultural yields. Technology has revolutionized a lot of things, Beale said, which could also help tackle the problem of bias that comes through self-reporting. Early randomized controlled trials, which relied on paper surveys, were susceptible to many “loopholes” and were largely based on self-reporting. But digital tools allow for better quality control of the data that’s coming in, she explained. There is still a long way to go, however. “I think right now we are still at the cusp of trying to get people in the field to use digital tools that allow us to do much better quality control of the data that’s coming in,” Beale explained.