Insights
Method notes from live assignments
Short pieces on measurement problems we keep meeting: how participants are counted, how adoption is observed rather than asked about, and what it takes for a data system to outlive the contract that built it.
Latest
Three notes
Participation is not people
Activity registers count attendances. Results frameworks report beneficiaries. Settling which one an indicator means, before fieldwork rather than after it, is one of the most useful hours a programme can spend.
MeasurementDistributed, present, working, used
Adoption is usually reported as one number and measured as several different things. Cookstoves and tree planting are where this shows up most often, and where being precise pays for itself.
SystemsWhat a tracer system needs to survive handover
Designing a graduate tracer system is the straightforward half. We piloted one at two training institutions and traced 273 graduates. The design questions that mattered most were about what happens after the consultants leave.
What we publish
Method, not client findings
These notes describe how we work and the problems we work on. They do not carry client findings.
Programme targets referred to here come from schedules our clients use for their own reporting. Counts we refer to are figures from assignments we delivered. Results stay with the organisation that commissioned them.
Each note is written by the NexPAL team and reviewed by the lead consultant before publication. Where a point is professional judgement rather than a documented finding, the text says so.
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