Monitoring and Evaluation
HEA’s strengths in monitoring and evaluating impact are, firstly, that it offers a detailed blueprint of the mechanisms and resources households draw to survive and proper during a normal year. The analysis allows a focus on a particular aspect of the household economy, but in the context of all other sources of income, as well as sources of food and expenditure patterns for different wealth groups. Secondly, components of the household economy are quantified and therefore amenable to monitoring over time.
Given these two characteristics, HEA is able to offer a view of program impact:
- On household economy and access to services, and by extension on household poverty (How have targeted households benefited from the project or policy? Have there been negative effects?).
- On poverty at the community level - has there been a shift in wealth status?
- Relative to other changes that have occurred – it is able to explicitly recognize and take into account the impact of non-program influences. This enables program managers to judge in advance the likely effects of unforeseen shocks such as drought and to mitigate against them in appropriate ways.
The case studies to the below demonstrate how HEA has been used for program monitoring.