Training Course on Monitoring and Evaluation in Food Security and Nutrition

Course Overview

This course provides a comprehensive exploration of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) principles within the context of food security and nutrition programs. Participants will gain a solid foundation in M&E frameworks, tools, and techniques, equipping them with the skills needed to assess, improve, and sustain effective interventions in the field of food security and nutrition.

Course Objectives:

• Understand the fundamental concepts and importance of M&E in the context of food security and nutrition.
• Develop practical skills in designing and implementing M&E frameworks for food security and nutrition programs.
• Learn to select and use appropriate indicators for assessing key aspects of food security and nutrition.
• Acquire knowledge of various data collection methods and analytical techniques relevant to the field.
• Explore advanced evaluation approaches, including impact assessments and formative/sum

Target Participants

This course is designed for researchers, project staff, development practitioners, managers and decision makers who are responsible for project, program or organization-level M&E in Food Security and Nutrition programs.

Course Duration: 10 days

Course Outline

Module 1: Introduction to M&E

• Definition of Monitoring and Evaluation
• Why Monitoring and Evaluation is important
• Key principles and concepts in M&E
• M&E and the project lifecycle
• Complementary roles of Monitoring and Evaluation

Module 2: Food Security and Nutrition M&E Frameworks

• Food security and Nutrition Conceptual Frameworks
• Food security and Nutrition Results Frameworks
• Logical Framework Analysis (LFA)
• Design of Food security and nutrition projects using LogFrame

Module 3: Food Security and Nutrition Indicators

• FSN indicators definition: Dietary diversity score, Food Consumption Score, Coping Strategy Index, Nutrition indicators
• Indicator metrics
• Link between indicators to results
• Indicator Matrix
• FSN indicator performance tracking

Module 4: M&E System design and Planning in FSN

• Importance of an M&E Plan
• Documenting M&E System in the M&E Plan
• Components of an M&E Plan-Monitoring, Evaluation, Data management, Reporting
• Using M&E Plan to implement M&E in a Project
• M&E plan vs Performance Management Plan (PMP)

Module 5: M&E Considerations for Sector Specific Programming

• Food Security Programs: Food Availability, Seasonality, Food Access, Food Utilization
• Health and Nutrition Programs; Selection of Indicators, sources of data, Reproductive Health
• Integrating Cross Cutting Issues into Data Collection

Module 6: Data Management and Analysis for M&E in FSN

• Different sources of M&E data
• Qualitative data collection methods
• Quantitative data collection methods
• Participatory methods of data collection
• Qualitative data analysis
• Quantitative data analysis
• Data interpretation and reporting

Module 7: Gender integration in M&E for FSN

• Gender integration during project activities design
• Gender indicators in Food Security and Nutrition programs
• Cross cutting gender issues in FSN
• Measure of gender outcomes
• Role of M&E in addressing gender
• Measure pf gender outcomes

Module 8: Evaluation of Food Security and Nutrition Programs

• Determining evaluation points from results framework
• Components of evaluations: implementation and process evaluations.
• Evaluation designs- experimental, quasi-experimental and non-experimental
• Performance evaluation process
• Evaluation findings sharing and dissemination

Module 9: Impact Assessment of Food Security and Nutrition Programs

• Introduction to impact evaluation
• Attribution in impact evaluation
• Estimation of counterfactual
• Impact evaluation methods

Module 10: M&E Results Use and Dissemination

• Use of M&E results to improve and strengthen FSN projects
• Use of M&E Lessons learnt and Best Practices
• M&E reporting

Note: This outline provides a general structure for the training. The specific content, activities, and duration of each session may be adjusted based on the target audience, learning objectives, and available time.