I've just completed an appraisal of a project design for an AusAID NGO Cooperation Agreement.  I found the design document to be well written, and in some ways innovative.

The design embraced the complexity and systemic nature of development challenges in rural Cambodia, and proposed an iterative/emergent approach to tackling these issues based on a form of action-learning cycle (GTZ's Participatory Extension Approach (PEA)). 

Although I appreciated the gist of the thinking behind the design, I raised the following questions:

• Is there a risk that adopting such an emergent/organic approach could be beyond the capacity of the implementation team on the ground?  Given the typically high workload associated with implementation, does this approach carry additional risk because of its inherent ambiguity? 
• Is the life of one Cooperation Agreement sufficient to enable iterations ...

The tension between Aristotle's functionalist ('classical') view and Plato's interpretist ('romantic') view of M&E that I discussed in my last blog is everywhere.

I'm engaged as an M&E Advisor to a major bilateral aid program in South East Asia.  Recently a senior government official asked a colleague of mine, "why are you guys bothering with all this 'operational' M&E data?  We're ultimately interested in the impact or outcomes of the program, so why not just focus on that kind of information?".

My colleague responded "well if you just want the head of the dog we can do that.  But in order to really learn and improve our effectiveness, we need to know about the body and legs of the dog as well". 

The idea of focussing exclusively on 'higher order' performance is particularly vogue at the moment.  This is probably a reaction to the bad old days when per ...

So why 'Zen and the art of monitoring and evaluation'??

The truth is I've stolen the title from Robert Pirsig's classic book, 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance'.

Pirsig's book is one of my favourites.  At a superficial level it tells the story of his trip across the United States on a motorcycle with his young son on the back.  But at a deeper level it paints a holisit philosophy of life...a 'Zen' philosophy.

While riding for hour-upon-hour, Pirsig muses the tension between very strong oposing (polemical) views of the world that can be traced to Aristotle and Plato respectively.  Aristotle's view he calls 'classical', Plato's view he calls 'romantic'. 

A classical worldview is all about function.  It's the view that underpins scientific and engineering thought processes.  It seeks to understand a 'wall' by ex ...