Tool 22: Monitoring and Evaluation When to use Purpose Time Resources Stages 1- 4 Tools that will enable the community to check how well the community is progressing toward or achieving its outcomes. Various Various It is essential for the credibility of your HRCLD work that the community understands how well it is progressing toward, or reaching, its outcomes. APF advises a monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) process to do this . MEAL involves: • Monitoring: tracking the progress of the community’s work. • Evaluating: assessing what does and does not work, for whom and in what circumstances. • Accountability: listening to the views of communities and stakeholders, accurately reflecting those views in your reporting, feeding back to communities and stakeholders and meeting your obligations for reporting. • Learning: reflecting on your work and making improvements based on the knowledge you acquire through time and experience. There are many, many ways that MEAL can be carried out. The most important is that 1) it happens from the outset and 2) that the tools and processes you use are relevant to the community you are working with, they give you good information and they enable a story to be told. Refer the MEAL Guide and the Human Rights Education Manual developed also by the APF.17 Evaluation wheel, Jakarta Indonesia (Photo by J Chrisp) 16. Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning: A Guide for NHRIs. Available at https://www.asiapacificforum.net/resources/monitoring-evaluation-accountability-and-learning-guide-national-human-rights-institutions/ 17. Human Rights Education A Manual for NHRIs https://www.asiapacificforum.net/resources/human-rights-education-manual/ APF HRCLD Guide 92