🌟 Editor's Note
Hello from Warsaw! This being our second ever issue of the newsletter, we’re officially out of one-hit-wonder territory. Is that good? Let us know!
💸 Ukraine's $230M lesson: When 'good enough' beats perfect
What's new: Ukraine's humanitarian response saved $230 million through deduplication systems, but the platform generating most savings scored worst in a recent assessment.
Since Russia's 2022 invasion, Ukraine's Cash Working Group has prevented massive aid duplication using data management systems. By end-2024, these systems saved $207 million in multi-purpose cash alone, plus $23 million across other programmes — enough to reach thousands more families in need.
The twist: Building Blocks (WFP's platform) generated the lion's share of savings with 63 partner organisations enrolled. Yet it scored just 8 out of 24 points in April 2025's systems assessment — dead last among seven platforms evaluated.
Why it matters: This exposes a interesting tension in our sector. Building Blocks failed on governance (WFP retains control), compliance (not GDPR-ready), and features (no registration deduplication). But it succeeded where it counts most: preventing duplicate payments at scale.
The assessment ranked HotPot highest (20/24 points), followed by:
RedRose (19/24)
GeniusTags (18/24)
Aidonic (17/24)
RAIS+ (16/24)
CommCare (13/24)
Building Blocks scored lowest at 8/24 points despite generating the most savings.
Between the lines: Perfect can be the enemy of good enough. While the higher-scoring systems offer better governance and compliance frameworks, Building Blocks solved the immediate problem: stopping aid duplication when speed mattered most.
The bottom line: When resources are finite and needs are urgent, operational effectiveness might trump technical perfection. The challenge isn't just building better systems — it's ensuring they actually get used where they're needed most.
What to watch: As humanitarian responses mature, the sector faces a choice between rapid deployment of 'good enough' solutions versus waiting for systems that meet all governance and compliance ideals. Ukraine's experience suggests both approaches have merit, but timing matters.
💼 Jobs & Opportunities
Jobs & Opportunities board coming soon!
Monitoring & Evaluation Program Officer
The Beginnings Fund
The Beginnings Fund is a new philanthropic initiative aiming to prevent over 300,000 avoidable deaths, and improve the quality of care for 34 million women and newborns by 2030, investing in the people, products, and systems that can deliver high-quality care at scale. They seek a M&E Program Officer to become the the numbers-and-insights powerhouse behind their mission.
Deadline: 21 August 2025
Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator
Ansh
Ansh’s focus is Kangaroo Care, a highly cost-effective and scientifically proven intervention for saving newborn lives. This position will be responsible for implementing, and managing Ansh’s comprehensive M&E systems to track and assess the performance and impact of Ansh’s neonatal care programs at the district hospital, ensuring data-driven decision-making, continuous improvement, and accountability.
Deadline: Rolling applications
🧐 No Baseline? No Problem.
Imagine you've inherited a project without baseline data and need to conduct a credible evaluation. Michael Bamberger’s 2010 note outlines proven strategies to reconstruct what you need. An oldie but a goodie!
Your reconstruction toolkit
Start with what exists. Before commissioning new data collection, hunt for existing information:
Secondary sources: National censuses, household surveys, ministry reports, and donor studies often contain relevant data from around your project's start date
Project admin data: Application forms, feasibility studies, and early monitoring reports frequently hold socioeconomic information about beneficiaries
Comparison groups: Sometimes application forms from rejected participants can serve as your control group
Use people's memories strategically. Recall techniques work better than you might think when designed properly:
Ask about major, memorable events rather than detailed statistics
Link questions to significant life events (births, deaths, school enrollment)
Focus on changes families can reliably remember, like access to services or travel times
Tap local expertise. Key informants – school directors, health workers, local leaders, even shopkeepers – often have institutional memory about community conditions before your project began.
These approaches work best when combined. Secondary data provides the big picture, while recall and key informants fill in crucial details about local conditions and changes over time.
The bottom line: Missing baselines aren't ideal, but they're not evaluation death sentences. The key is being transparent about your methods and their limitations whilst building the strongest possible foundation with available tools.
Go deeper: Ann-Murray Brown, founder of the Monitoring & Evaluation Academy, is hosting a paid webinar on this topic on 7 August 2025 3pm CET / 9am EDT.
🛠 IDInsight launches new open-source tools
Evidential
Evidential is a free, open-source experiment engine for social sector nonprofits. It helps them run A/B tests to enable rapid, rigorous learning, simplifying randomized assignment, power calculations, & analysis. It offers real-time results, data security, & support to build internal learning capabilities.
Key features
Quick turnarouns: Designs tests that deliver insights in weeks
Takes care of technical overhead: Handles randomised treatment assignment, power calculations, and analysis
Live-event data: Updates results in real-time to help you spot early wins or risks
Keeps PII secure: Has in-built security features so that no sensitive data leaves your infrastructure.
SurveyAccelerator
SurveyAccelarator is a specialised search engine that helps researchers, policymakers, and development practitioners quickly find relevant information within a large collection of high-quality surveys and research tools from organisations like UNICEF, USAID, World Bank, and more.
Key features
Advanced Search: Find relevant information quickly using powerful search algorithms
Document Library: Browse a collection of high-quality surveys and research documents
Survey Type Filters: Filter by survey types (DHS Surveys, MICS7 questionnaires, household income surveys, etc.)
Highlighted PDFs: View relevant matched text highlighted directly within PDF documents
🤩 Coming Soon: Your Global Guide to M&E Master's Programs
Thinking about leveling up your M&E career with a master's degree? We've been digging deep into universities worldwide to find the graduate programs that go the extra mile and focus specifically on monitoring and evalution practice.
From Oxford's prestigious EBSIPE program to specialised degrees in Australia, Germany, Kenya, and beyond, we're mapping out the landscape of quality M&E education globally.
What's coming: A comprehensive breakdown of 20+ programs across 6 continents, with the real details on curriculum, delivery formats and costs.
Stay tuned—this lands in your inbox in the upcoming weeks.
Thanks for reading!