What are monitoring and evaluation?

In this chapter, we will go through a perhaps boring, but very necessary task: defining our terminology. Virtually every agency, researcher and organization has its own definition of what monitoring is, what evaluation is, where to draw the line between the two and what the different kinds of evaluation are (the most common that you might have heard mentioned are process evaluation, outcome evaluation and cost evaluation). This section will look into these issues, proposing working definitions. Please note carefully: the definitions proposed below are those we have found helpful and use in our work. They are not, in any way, meant to be the way in which these terms are defined. Thus it is relatively more important that you familiarize yourself with the concepts, rather than with the actual terms, so as to be able to recognize them in the wild jungle of monitoring and evaluation terminology out there.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Good Health and Well-Being