Even the purest of intentions in international development work can inadvertently result in harmful effects on a community where that work is being conducted. Thus, proper monitoring and evaluation are essential to ensuring high ethical standards in an organization’s work. This begins with having a plan in place to monitor a project’s progress and success, and to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. This allows organizations to continuously learn lessons that can help improve their intervention. Including the community in all stages of M&E and allowing honest feedback will ensure that projects are relevant and realistic. And demonstrating an interest in learning and adapting makes the organization accountable to both donors and community stakeholders. As such, ethical monitoring and evaluation is one of the topics on which OLAM’s Aspire Ethical Practices Program is focused.

See OLAM’s ethical monitoring & evaluation spectrum tool, which can help organizations working in the field of international development identify potential areas for improvement in their climate practices.

• Resources that expand on ethical M&E practices
• More about OLAM’s Aspire program

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