Sharing Data with Communities

The indicator shows the extent to which an organization shared the most relevant findings of monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) activities with relevant community members. Regularly sharing the collected data and results and discussing their implications for further programming can strengthen community trust, ownership, and participation. It also enables the organization to validate the findings and verify the relevance of any planned follow-up actions.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Define the types of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEAL) activities from which (some of) the results of the collected data should be shared with relevant community members, such as surveys, monitoring activities, or evaluations. This should be informed primarily by an organization’s policy / system for sharing data with the communities (the same applies to points 2 – 4 below). If this is unavailable, engage a relevant expert(s) in developing a system for sharing data with the community members.

2) Define with whom the information must be shared. This might not only be the people from whom the data was collected but also other community members, such as those participating in the project, local authorities, and service providers.

3) Define what information should be shared and for what purpose. Most likely, some of the collected information will be more relevant for the community members than others, so there will be a need for prioritization (in line with the stated purpose of sharing the information). Consult community members (including any groups with specific needs) about what data is important to them.

4) Define how the data should be shared to reach the people defined in point 2; consultations with relevant community members should inform your definition. Specify when the data should be shared – after every data collection activity? Or can the data from several M&E activities be presented simultaneously? Be mindful of groups that may be excluded due to the selection of specific sharing methods and timing.

5) Use reviews of relevant documents and staff interviews to determine the number of relevant M&E activities that shared the collected data with relevant community members in line with the criteria defined in points 1 – 4. To determine the indicator’s value, divide this number by the total number of relevant M&E activities (relevant = meets criteria in point 1). Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

Disaggregate the data by the type of M&E activities.

1) In order to determine the indicator’s value, it is essential that a project’s M&E system continuously records the required data, as deciding retrospectively whether a given M&E activity met the criteria defined in points 1 – 4 would be difficult and probably inaccurate.

2) This indicator should only be used if an organization (or a project) has a clear policy on sharing data with relevant community members. The policy will inform most of the decisions that need to be taken to specify the indicator’s methodology (steps 1 – 4) and determine its value.