Monitoring and Measuring Change in Market Systems: Rethinking the Current Paradigm

This paper is a synthesis of the work of Systemic Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) initiative of the SEEP Network between August and December 2012. The initiative brought together practitioners and academics to explore obstacles that field practitioners face when trying to monitor and evaluate changes in market systems using the current linear, mechanistic paradigm. It explored principles that can bring donors and practitioners together to build systemic M&E frameworks.The discussions reinforced the validity of three challenges that inclusive market development practitioners face, namely, excessive focus on the project's direct effects on the poor, excessive focus on extraction of information and accountability to donors, and sustainability understood as longevity of the project's legacy. The paper calls for a radical rethink of the dominant M&E paradigm with one that embraces the complex, open, and adaptive nature of market systems. The discussions helped participants converge around a set of principles that could be used to design and use systemic M&E frameworks that respond to local contexts and needs. They are:

• Indirectness of impact;
• Depth of impact;
• Network-driven change;
• Unpredictability;
• Sensitivity to external signals;
• Information deficit;
• Sustainability as adaptability.