How Can We Incentivize Actual Use of M&E Results Data?

Today, Development Gateway will be at MERL Tech leading a discussion group on the following question: “How can we incentivize actual use of results data?” We invite you to join us for a candid discussion around demand for results data and incentives to use the data.

Via this discussion, we hope to learn — along with the MERL Tech community — how we have succeeded (and failed!) in incentivizing our own organizations, donors, partners, and other stakeholders to actually use M&E tools/data to make decisions.
From nearly 500 interviews in Ghana, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka of local data producers and users, via our Results Data Initiative, we found very few incentives and many barriers to using M&E data on-the-ground.

As multilateral, bilateral, or private sector development partners, many of us have results frameworks in place at country and institutional level where results data is tracked at project level. This results data could be shared nationally (and at local level) both to inform local decision making and planning.

In a recently published policy brief, we distill our findings across all three country studies and offer some recommendations. Our more detailed summary country reports can be found on the RDI website. These observations shed light on some key constraints we have uncovered thus far, preventing the development of stronger links between decisions on resources and evidence on results. We hope you can join us at our discussion at MERL Tech, online, or by directly contacting us.