Tag: impactful programmes

Monitoring and Evaluation: Designing for impact

Posted on by team galvmed

At GALVmed, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is not an afterthought. It is integrated from the very start of the development of new projects and programmes. This approach ensures that our projects are designed with a clear vision of impact. It also ensures that we, and our funders, have realistic expectations on what can be achieved within a project’s lifetime.

There are three key areas where we provide early input:

  1. Modelling the prospective impact of an initiative: Whenever possible, we forecast the potential economic benefits of a project for small-scale livestock producers (SSPs) before it even starts using a prospective modelling approach. This forward-looking method provides insights into the potential economic returns, in terms of animal lives saved and productivity regained, for SSPs purchasing critical livestock vaccines and other animal health products. Before a project begins, stakeholders and funders can understand the investment potential, and this helps decision making on where to allocate resources.
  2. Creating a Theory of Change: The Theory of Change is an important part of our process. It clearly outline the changes we want to see, how the project will lead to those changes, the expected timelines for impact, and the key assumptions we are working with. This clarity ensures that everyone involved in the project has a common understanding. The Theory of Change also helps us identify potential risks and challenges early on so we can course correct to keep our initiatives on track.
  3. Developing an evaluation framework: A framework that clearly defines the OECD DAC evaluation criteria we will use, along with the associated evaluation questions, indicators, data sources, sampling methods, timing, and data analysis approaches, ensures that we establish a clear plan from the beginning on how we will assess and measure the impact of our initiatives. This framework facilitates a shared understanding of our evaluation process.

By integrating M&E from the early stages of project design and implementation, our initiatives are strategically designed to maximise impact for the small-scale livestock producers we serve.

This blog was written by Katharine Tjasink, Senior Manager, Impact, Evaluation & Learning, as part of the campaign ”M&E: Designing for Impact”.

GALVmed discusses impact

Posted on by team galvmed

Impact is an important topic for any philanthropic organisation and GALVmed is putting this topic front and centre of our agenda for 2022. The primary reason is that we are in the process of finalising and beginning to implement our ten-year strategy, and it is vitally important that we integrate the lessons we have learned so far and align on the topic of impact.

To kickstart this process, three workshops were held over the end of January and beginning of February 2022 with the aim to provide a common, organisational understanding of impact. We took a look at our record of impact and discussed some of the associated key lessons learned from the three main programmes GALVmed has delivered to date, namely the first and second Protecting Livestock, Saving Human Life programmes (PLSHL 1 and PLSHL 2), and the Veterinary Innovations Transforming Animal Health and Livelihoods programme (VITAL). These workshops constituted the first phase of a collective look at impact within the organisation.

A second phase is being led by the evaluation team, which operates under the Commercial Development and Impact department (CD&I) at GALVmed. Lasting eight weeks, the primary purpose is to collate further data, present findings to our donors and board, and most importantly, to implement actionable findings into the Commercial Development, Research and Development, Evaluation, and Enabling Environment programmes under the new strategy.

The key activities include taking lessons learned from previous programmes of work and considering the implications for new GALVmed projects and programmes, creating a theory of change for GALVmed at an organisational level, in which the GALVmed mission is clearly stated and pathways to impact explained, and linking impact to GALVmed’s overall assessment of organisational performance. Through this process we intend to identify our potential for impact in the new strategy as well as the key levers and drivers for change.

This blog was written by Katharine Tjasink