gLOCAL 2024: From roadblocks to roadmaps

Locally led monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and the meaningful engagement of communities in evaluations are important vehicles for greater accountability in humanitarian aid. However, humanitarian settings pose significant challenges to M&E, including difficulty in accessing populations affected by crises and the constant balance of resources versus priority actions, leaving little room for practitioners and organisations to advance and support locally-led and community-centred M&E practices.

Through this session, Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action ( ALNAP ) and Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) will share the findings from their respective research on locally-led M&E and making evaluation findings accessible to communities (HAG, forthcoming). The panel will also feature experienced local evaluators who have engaged in this work and will speak to their rich experience of balancing ambition with realism in their locally-led M&E practices.

ALNAP is currently producing a scoping paper on locally-led M&E in humanitarian contexts to support relevant actors in finding their place within the wider discourse and to learn from the existing M&E practices of local actors, with a call to action for those not yet involved. This work is grounded in making locally-led M&E resources and initiatives more accessible and understood by as wide an audience as possible to advance the wider agenda of locally-led humanitarian action. ALNAP believes that through learning comes change. Through this paper, we aim to support practitioners to quickly identify where they can begin to improve their practice within their sphere of influence to contribute to change.

HAG will draw on insights from our partnership-based research that seeks to challenge power structures and transform the way that people are treated in crises around the world. In particular, HAG and GLOW Consultants will share findings of research into the current practices used by humanitarians and M&E practitioners to make the results of evaluation processes accessible to communities. We will share the barriers and promising practices and propose a six-step process to support evaluators in creating better experiences for communities in shaping the use and outcomes of evaluation.

Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of the enablers and barriers to locally-led M&E in humanitarian contexts and learn concrete steps to strengthen approaches to making evaluation findings accessible to communities. This panel is aimed at a broad audience given the various roles of evaluators, commissioners, academia and other stakeholders in advancing knowledge and practice of local leadership, participation and engagement in evaluative work.