TRECC commissioned Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) to build and implement a robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) framework across programs in three thematic areas: early childhood development, quality primary education, and youth training.
IPA was responsible for conducting independent evaluations of the efficacy of 12 selected pilot projects. It also provided technical assistance to TRECC implementing partners in collecting and using monitoring data to learn and adapt their programming. They provided TRECC partners – Government, foundations, cocoa and chocolate companies, as well as NGOs – with reliable evidence to inform programmatic decisions within and beyond this program.
To help guide decisions about scaling up promising pilots over time, TRECC established with IPA a “path to scale” process (figure 1). This set out clear and transparent criteria for decision-making, including identifying key results to be achieved and determining how sustainability and scalability were to be demonstrated. Only pilots meeting all success criteria would move to the next stage on the path to scale. Pilots not meeting all success criteria would require an additional iteration to address, the weaknesses highlighted by the evaluation or, if there was little chance that those weaknesses could be remedied, they would be abandoned. Out of those 12 pilots, three were identified as fully successful and ready to be scaled up, while two were deemed unsuccessful and were to be discontinued. For the remainder, we recommended another pilot iteration to address the specific weaknesses that had been identified.
Download the final Monitoring and Evaluation reports produced by IPA on 12 pilots projects co-financed by TRECC philanthropic partners and 12 cocoa and chocolate companies.
