International development projects can be closed for a variety of reasons. In the best case, a project will be closed because the problem it is trying to solve has been fixed. In other cases, a project could close because there is a lack of funding, the organisation no longer has …

At tools4dev we get a lot of emails from people who want to make a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for their program, but don’t know where to start. If that sounds familiar then this guide is for you. Know your program Before you start work on the M&E system it’s important …

Note: An M&E framework can also be called an evaluation matrix. One of the most popular downloads on tools4dev is our M&E framework template. We’ve had lots of questions from people on how to use specific parts of the template, so we’ve decided to put together this short how-to guide. Choose your …

Designing a new program can be both challenging and rewarding. Challenging because it’s difficult to know if you’ve designed it the right way. Rewarding if your program ends up working (or discouraging if it ends up not working!). There are plenty of manuals on how to design programs, like these …

Over the last few decades there has been an ongoing debate in the international development community about the best way to describe how programs lead to results. One approach has been to use a Logical Framework (also called a LogFrame), which most donors now require. Another increasingly popular approach is …

A Theory of Change describes how and why you think change happens. In simple terms, it’s like completing the sentence “if we do X  then Y will change because…”. This is particularly important in international development because people often have underlying assumptions or beliefs about change that may not be accurate. …