The aim of MSD programmes is to facilitate sustainable changes within market systems, rather than direct implementation of activities. This approach requires a robust monitoring framework that goes beyond traditional project-level monitoring, focusing on capturing systemic changes, learning and adaptation.
A monitoring framework provides the means for determining if a programme is on course to achieve its aims. Market systems initiatives are based on an underlying theory of how proposed actions will achieve intended results. A key step in developing a monitoring framework is to describe the underlying theory in explicit terms, setting out a formal theory of change (see also Establishing the vision for change and Developing a theory of change). This should make clear what kind of changes are being sought, and how programme interventions will bring about these changes.
The 2018 Reader on results measurement (updated in 2021) presents the DCED Standard for results measurement and explores how programmes have increasingly adopted it and applied it in varying contexts.
Specifying the programme’s overall theory of change then provides the basis for developing the strategy for measuring change, which consists of the following three elements.
Element 1: monitoring intervention performance. This involves taking an ‘inwards-out’ perspective of the programme’s performance by monitoring progress of individual interventions, starting with the intervention and then moving outwards to examine changes in the wider market system. This element includes measuring indicators at different points along each intervention’s results chain, and also looking for unintended consequences and other factors that influence intervention performance. See Collecting information that matters to market actors
How to monitor interventions effectively outlines how the PRISMA team used monitoring information in management and concludes with lessons that are broadly applicable.
Element 2: observing changes in the wider market. This involves observing changes in the wider market system and then considering how the programme might have contributed towards them. As such, it provides an ‘outwards-in’ perspective, which may also be useful in identifying new developments in the market. See Understanding wider systems change beyond target interventions
Practitioners’ guide to assessing systems change presents practical tips, resources, rubrics, templates, analysis frameworks and team reflections and planning exercises for MEL managers seeking to monitor changes in the wider market.
Element 3: review and integrate monitoring results. This element brings together the results of the inwards-out and outwards-in elements. This should establish a credible and plausible narrative about the effects of the programme and its intervention. As such, it provides the basis for adapting interventions and the programme, and for reporting on to funders as well as programme participants, beneficiaries and other market actors.