The Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation Community of Practice holds annual meeting
Members of the Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation Community of Practice (MLE CoP) held their second annual meeting from 27 to 29 April 2016 at Swiss Hotel Villa Portofino in Kigali, Rwanda. The theme of the meeting was Harmonized Strategies for M&E Household and Yield Data Collection. There were 25 participants from 8 sub-Saharan African countries, 7 of them women.
The MLE CoP meeting was characterized by practical hands-on sessions. Participants learnt how to determine sample size for surveys. They deployed mobile devices to undertake data collection and analysis using Open Data Kit (ODK), a free and open-source set of tools for mobile data management. They visited some farmers, where they used the ‘crop cut’ method to estimate sweetpotato root yield. The main meeting was preceded by a training on resource mobilization at CIP and an orientation to the Sweetpotato Knowledge Portal.
Since its formation in March 2015, the MLE CoP has been developing indicators to demonstrate progress in achieving improved agriculture, nutrition and health in sub-Saharan Africa. They have also developed strategies and tools that will help to harmonize the collection and reporting of monitoring results in the region.