July 10, 2024 • 20 mins
In this episode of the LocalLink Hub podcast, Enikő Vass, the communications and content manager for Local Link Hub, talks about the significance of monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) in NGOs with Mariela Lazi, a Regional Quality and Accountability Advisor for Terre des hommes in Europe.
In this podcast about the basics of MEAL Mariela Lazi explains that MEAL stands for Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning, which evolved from the older term, M&E (Monitoring and Evaluation). MEAL includes accountability to donors and beneficiaries and emphasizes continuous learning to improve project outcomes.
Mariela discusses how, in the past, local NGOs often included monitoring and evaluation within project coordination tasks rather than having a separate unit. However, having a dedicated MEAL team is crucial to avoid bias and ensure objective evaluation of projects. She notes that the capacity to carry out MEAL tasks varies among local NGOs, and there is a growing need for strong capacity-building efforts.
The practical challenges of implementing MEAL
The conversation touches on the practical challenges of implementing MEAL. Projects must be designed with clear, measurable goals to facilitate effective monitoring and evaluation. The unpredictability of NGO work makes it even more essential to have well-defined plans and adaptable strategies.
Mariela also emphasizes the importance of independence and decision-making power for MEAL professionals within NGOs. They must be able to voice concerns and highlight issues objectively, without pressure from project implementers. This helps ensure the effectiveness and impact of projects.
Good practices in the sector include a growing desire for capacity development among local organizations and the establishment of dedicated MEAL units. Mariela advises NGOs to strengthen their MEAL structures and allow MEAL professionals to operate independently to maintain accountability and improve project outcomes.
In closing, Enikő Vass thanks Mariela Lazi for her insights and invites listeners to learn more about Terre des hommes initiatives and contact the podcast team with feedback or comments.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to LocalLink Hub's
podcast, a show with local
impact for global change.
For those who don't know, LocalLink Hub isthe localization and partnership
(00:22):
initiative for Terre des hommes.
LocalLink Hub is also a global onlineplatform that provides free e-learning
learning and capacity developmentresources for local and national actors.
We support our local partners to becomea better prepared for future crisis.
The project is funded bythe Somaha Foundation.
(00:46):
I'm your host, Enikő Vass,and I'm the communications and
content manager for Local Link Hub.
And thank you for listeningto today's episode.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
OnLocal Link Hub podcast, we discuss topics
(01:06):
related to partnership and localization.
In today's episode, I will be talking withMariela Lazi from Terre des hommes about
the basics of monitoring and evaluation.
Mariela Lazi, a seasoned developmentprofessional with a PhD in psychology,
(01:27):
has over 18 years of experience in projectdesign, monitoring and evaluation,
and community engagement.
She has worked in several NGOs inSoutheastern Europe and currently serves
as the Regional Quality and AccountabilityAdvisor for Terre des hommes in Europe.
(01:50):
Mariela is also an adjunct professor atseveral universities in Albania and
Kosovo, showcasing commitmentto both practice and academia.
So hello, Mariela.
It's really nice to haveyou today on this podcast.
Hello.
(02:11):
Nice to be here.
When I joined TDH two years ago and Iheard for the first time the word MEAL, I
thought that it's something to beconsumed in a fancy restaurant.
But quickly, I realizedthis is much more than that.
Please, can you elaborate to our listenerswhat MEALstands for in an NGO setting?
(02:36):
Yeah, it actually has a connection witha MEAL, but it's very different meaning.
The M stands for monitoring, E stands forevaluation, A for accountability,
and L for learning.
It's the new terminology because the olderterminology used in the sector was
(02:57):
M&E, monitoring and evaluation.
Later somehow it was agreed thatinside the role is also
accountability because we do monitoring,we collect data to be accountable to our
donors, to our beneficiaries, to ourinternal decision decision
makers and to our managers.
(03:17):
And we do both monitoring and evaluationfor learning purposes because we want to
be always a better version of ourselves.
So we want to improveand we want to learn whatever it
is to learn from whatever we do.
So that's why thisnew name, it's encompassing also
accountability and learning apart frommonitoring and evaluation, which was the
(03:40):
standard and widelyused terminology for the position.
So when the localization project startedand my colleagues created an assessment of
our local partners, to my surprise,we found out that TDH's partners, 70%,
(04:02):
have a monitoring and evaluation team.
What's your experience?
Do local NGOs really have a persondedicated to MEAL activities?
MEAL and M&E for me, it's rather a newneed or a new area of expertise, an area
of work, but it's not a verynew area of work in that sense.
(04:29):
In this case, especially these very localNGOs, they have been integrating a lot of
M&E functions inside theproject coordination people.
It has not been a separate unit,but all the monitoring tasks or evaluating
tasks has been incorporated inside theproject coordinator or
(04:52):
project management team.
But however, in the recent years, theentire NGO arena have agreed that
we need to be much more unbiased.
Because one of the reasons why we need aunit which is apart from the project
implementation team,it's also for biases purposes because we
(05:14):
don't want the same people that areimplementing a project or initiative to be
also evaluating or assessing theimpact of the intervention by itself,
because it will be a bit of a bias issue.
Just let's say, we are from people.Yeah, we are.
And we are a bit more not so verysceptical when we are analysing ourself.
(05:38):
So we need a more externaleye to whatever is being done.
Also to to hold ourselvesaccountable sometimes.
Of course, there are some people or someorganizations that have high level of
internal accountability and holdingthemselves accountable
for the achievements.
(05:59):
But In most of the cases, it's better tobe an external entity or
unit to the organization.
So that's why in the recent year, more andmore donors are
prompting the organizations to establishthe M&E unit within the entity themselves,
not including all the M&E and MEAL tasksinside the project management
(06:23):
or project coordination tasks.
And for INGO, international NGOs as Terredes hommes and many others, this has
been a very long-standing requirement.
So we have been working with strengtheningthis department in TDH for
a very long time already.
(06:45):
However, and we are working in verydifferent regions of the world, so there
are counterparts of my position inmany different areas of the world.
And somehow, they all share the the sameidea that, unfortunately, local
organizations, even if they do have theunit, the capacities, the understanding,
(07:09):
and the scope of work is not very clear.
And sometimes they need a bit of capacitystrengthening, especially because most of
the professionals in the field are comingfrom organization or an area when M&E was
not separated by the projectmanagement and implementation team.
(07:33):
So it's still a bit of a struggle toreally make sure that the function is
understood properly and it is separatedfrom the program implementation team.
How do you characterize your collaborationwith these local organizations?
What are the main challenges youencounter in your day-to-day work?
(07:57):
Yeah.
One of the things that I was mentioningeven before is the fact that even if the
structure exists, there is a needfor a very strong capacity building.
And not only theoretically,but also in a practical way.
Somehow, I think that after a while inthis sector, we all agree that
(08:17):
most of our projects are a bittheoretical, are ambitious, and sometimes
they lack practical steps on howto happen, how to become a reality.
We have very good and broad ambitions,like we want to change the life of the
children in the street situation oraffected by migration or by war, like the
(08:40):
Ukrainian children that we areworking a lot in the recent years.
But how to exactly do that and how toreally understand that
we are having an impact?
What are the indicators to show thatwe are actually changing the realities?
Or what are the measurementswe have to put in place on?
(09:00):
What are the exact steps that we haveto put in place in order to do that?
That is not very clear.
And that's why the practical capacities ofgood M&E or MEAL person came very handy.
The more concrete and the more operationalthe plan is, the easier is to be measured,
(09:23):
to be monitored, and to be objective inwhat you are assessing or
what you are evaluating.
What is a strong M&E person or a veryexperienced or a professional M&E
person that is bringing to the table?
It's really helping the theoreticalconcepts to be much more concrete, to be
(09:47):
measurable, to be smart, to be achievable,to be timely-bounded, and all these the
things that are in alignment with whatwe can do during a lifetime of a project.
And the better we do this,there is an expression in M&E or in the
theoretical background of the monitoring,evaluation, accountability, and learning
arena that says (10:08):
If we fail to plan, we plan to fail.
So the planning or the design or how wereally design our path, what we are going
to do, what are the milestone, what we areneeding to achieve in a certain amount of
time, and how we are going to measure it,which is a big part of the M&E work.
(10:33):
If we are not doing it properly at thebeginning, then we will go and have a very
big path, and we will not make sure thatwe are going in the right direction.
We will have a lot of coordination issues.
So we are really planningto fail, as they are saying.
(10:53):
This is a bit of harsh terminology, butsometimes it's true, if we really do not
focus a lot on understanding what we are.
There is another expression that is aroundin the NGO world that you will never
listen or hear an NGO worker saying that: my project is going as it was planned, (11:09):
undefined
because there is alwayssomething happening.
There is always a postponementor delay or something happening.
So the fact that the implementation, theNGO sector is so unpredictable,
imagine then how difficult it will be tomeasure a project or to implement a
(11:34):
project that has not clear goals, that hasnot clear pathways, and then has a lot of
contextual changes duringthe implementation period.
And when you go at the end, when we havethe final evaluation, then you are going
to agree on the on the worthof the entire intervention.
You don't know what you are measuring, youdon't know what were the first initial
(11:57):
ambitions, what have you done, whatwas What was supposed to be done?
What was sometimes even the commitmentthat you took with the donor?
It's becoming a bit of a nightmare for anevaluator to agree on the
project impact and worth.
So that's why a MEAL person should befrom the beginning, from the start.
(12:20):
The MEAL capacities arevery important in an NGO.
During the entire project implementationlifetime, during the entire
life of the NGO itself.
Because it is one of the worst and mostdifficult things in our line of work.
It's actually to articulate theimpact of what you have done.
(12:45):
Because sometimes it's verysubjective, the change.
Sometimes it's very subtle.
It's very difficult to be visible.
And because it's very subjective,two people can have different opinions on
the same change and on the same impact.
So that's why we are taking a lot ofrigoureous measurements from academia,
(13:07):
from universities, from research,to make sure that when we say that, yes,
this project was successful becausethis indicator or this target were reach.
The statements are strong froma theoretical point of view.
The percentages are there.
So we are really taking a lotof the academia and be used during the
(13:28):
NGO sector to make sure that what we aresaying is strong enough and
significant enough in terms of findingsand achievements of the implementation.
I understand the goodwill of ahumanitarian worker is not enough
for a project to be successful.
The goodwill, and we all believethat the goodwill is always there.
(13:52):
But unfortunately, for a very long time,big NGOs, like donor NGOs,
had these question marks.
So there are two question marks thatactually MEAL helps to solve is,
are we doing the right thing?
And are we doing the rightthing in the right way?
So they were really having this questionmark about the money they were spending.
(14:14):
Are we really having a real impact?
Or it's just a wishful thinking from thepeople that are actually implementing
those projects that they are saying, weare changing the world
or changing the realities of thepeople we are trying to help.
It It was not enough forthem, just the wishful.
(14:34):
It might not always be wishful or it mightbe a lot of change there, but it's
not, let's say, evidence-based.
We are always talking about theseevidence-based statements more and in the
in the recent period just because of that.
And we are also talking more and moreabout speaking
with the voice of beneficiariesand not with the voice of project staff
(14:58):
or the voice of helpers, of NGO workers.
So you already mentioned a lot of goodpractices and how the sector is changing.
But what other good practices do you seewhen it comes to local organizations?
There is an increased hunger, if wecan say, for capacity development.
(15:20):
So that's a very good thing.
And the fact that most of theorganizations you are mentioning
agreed to to create this unit, and theywant also to build their capacities
is a very strong and good practice.
What I really think that it should be donemore in the local NGOs as they are today
(15:45):
is to give a bit more of independence anddecision making power or to listen to the
professionals that are in those units.
Because sometimes what is the mostdifficult task of an M&E, it's to voice
things that are going wrong whenthe implementers are their bosses.
(16:10):
So it's a bit of a tricky situation andyou really need a powerful voice
in order to be able to say...
Because nobody wants to go in anevaluation at the end of the project and
understand that the project was not goingin the right direction or
things were not done properly.
So that's why you need verystrong monitoring practices.
(16:32):
So you can highlight issues and you cantake the management decision to do the
course correction, the needed coursecorrections, to really make sure
that you are achieving the goal.
Basically, the function is not workingproperly if they are not
able to voice their concerns.
That's why the unit should be very muchindependent, very much professional,
(16:57):
because we don't even want MEAL people tohijack the entire process, just because
they are thinking thatit's not working very well.
It's a very important unit, and it shouldbe a very strong and very capable unit to
really make sure thatwhen something is not right, they are able
to behave as watchdogs and reallyhighlight the things that need
(17:21):
to be changed in a timely manner.
So that's one of thebest practices that would really
encourage every small localNGO to focus on in the future.
It's really interesting.
As a final advice,and to finish our podcast, what is the one
(17:44):
advice you would give to an NGO aboutyour area of expertise?
It's more and more important.
It's very much a need for us to beaccountable because whatever we do at the
end of the day, we need to be accountableto whoever is giving us the money,
being them internal managementteams or external donors.
(18:09):
But we also have to be accountable to thebeneficiaries that entrust it as with
their time, with their resourcessometimes, with their willingness to
participate, and with their desire toimprove whatever is the realities
and the situations they are in.
So we need to really make sure that we arecollecting the right information,
(18:32):
the right data, we areasking the right questions.
From the right question, we areunderstanding the right information, and
we are using this informationto make the right decisions for them
and to make the right work and impactfulimplementation
as everybody deserves to be.
(18:54):
That's a very important advice.
So please strengthen your MEALstructures, your MEAL units or people.
Sometimes it's only one person, but yeah,and give them the opportunity to be fair
with what they are doing and to behave.
(19:16):
Don't shut the voices of the MEALs becauseit's totally counterproductive for
their function.
So thank you very much and hope to see youon our next episode, perhaps on some other
professional MEAL-related discussion.
(19:37):
I'm Enikő Vass, and you've beenlistening to a Local Link Hub podcast.
We had help from Judit Németh-Almási .
Thank you very much.
Thanks to all of you for listening, andthank you to Mariela Lazi for joining
me today on this LocalLink Hub podcast.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
(19:57):
If you want to learn more about Terre deshommes initiative, please
visit our website, locallink.childhood.
org.
If you have any comments on the episode orwant to share your thoughts, contact us
via social media on Facebook or LinkedIn,or email us on locallink@childhub.
(20:20):
org.
Thank you, and see youon our next episode.
Hello and welcome to LocalLink Hub's
podcast, a show with local
impact for global change.
For those who don't know, LocalLink Hub isthe localization and partnership
(00:22):
initiative for Terre des hommes.
LocalLink Hub is also a global onlineplatform that provides free e-learning
learning and capacity developmentresources for local and national actors.
We support our local partners to becomea better prepared for future crisis.
The project is funded bythe Somaha Foundation.
(00:46):
I'm your host, Enikő Vass,and I'm the communications and
content manager for Local Link Hub.
And thank you for listeningto today's episode.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
OnLocal Link Hub podcast, we discuss topics
(01:06):
related to partnership and localization.
In today's episode, I will be talking withMariela Lazi from Terre des hommes about
the basics of monitoring and evaluation.
Mariela Lazi, a seasoned developmentprofessional with a PhD in psychology,
(01:27):
has over 18 years of experience in projectdesign, monitoring and evaluation,
and community engagement.
She has worked in several NGOs inSoutheastern Europe and currently serves
as the Regional Quality and AccountabilityAdvisor for Terre des hommes in Europe.
(01:50):
Mariela is also an adjunct professor atseveral universities in Albania and
Kosovo, showcasing commitmentto both practice and academia.
So hello, Mariela.
It's really nice to haveyou today on this podcast.
Hello.
(02:11):
Nice to be here.
When I joined TDH two years ago and Iheard for the first time the word MEAL, I
thought that it's something to beconsumed in a fancy restaurant.
But quickly, I realizedthis is much more than that.
Please, can you elaborate to our listenerswhat MEALstands for in an NGO setting?
(02:36):
Yeah, it actually has a connection witha MEAL, but it's very different meaning.
The M stands for monitoring, E stands forevaluation, A for accountability,
and L for learning.
It's the new terminology because the olderterminology used in the sector was
(02:57):
M&E, monitoring and evaluation.
Later somehow it was agreed thatinside the role is also
accountability because we do monitoring,we collect data to be accountable to our
donors, to our beneficiaries, to ourinternal decision decision
makers and to our managers.
(03:17):
And we do both monitoring and evaluationfor learning purposes because we want to
be always a better version of ourselves.
So we want to improveand we want to learn whatever it
is to learn from whatever we do.
So that's why thisnew name, it's encompassing also
accountability and learning apart frommonitoring and evaluation, which was the
(03:40):
standard and widelyused terminology for the position.
So when the localization project startedand my colleagues created an assessment of
our local partners, to my surprise,we found out that TDH's partners, 70%,
(04:02):
have a monitoring and evaluation team.
What's your experience?
Do local NGOs really have a persondedicated to MEAL activities?
MEAL and M&E for me, it's rather a newneed or a new area of expertise, an area
of work, but it's not a verynew area of work in that sense.
(04:29):
In this case, especially these very localNGOs, they have been integrating a lot of
M&E functions inside theproject coordination people.
It has not been a separate unit,but all the monitoring tasks or evaluating
tasks has been incorporated inside theproject coordinator or
(04:52):
project management team.
But however, in the recent years, theentire NGO arena have agreed that
we need to be much more unbiased.
Because one of the reasons why we need aunit which is apart from the project
implementation team,it's also for biases purposes because we
(05:14):
don't want the same people that areimplementing a project or initiative to be
also evaluating or assessing theimpact of the intervention by itself,
because it will be a bit of a bias issue.
Just let's say, we are from people.Yeah, we are.
And we are a bit more not so verysceptical when we are analysing ourself.
(05:38):
So we need a more externaleye to whatever is being done.
Also to to hold ourselvesaccountable sometimes.
Of course, there are some people or someorganizations that have high level of
internal accountability and holdingthemselves accountable
for the achievements.
(05:59):
But In most of the cases, it's better tobe an external entity or
unit to the organization.
So that's why in the recent year, more andmore donors are
prompting the organizations to establishthe M&E unit within the entity themselves,
not including all the M&E and MEAL tasksinside the project management
(06:23):
or project coordination tasks.
And for INGO, international NGOs as Terredes hommes and many others, this has
been a very long-standing requirement.
So we have been working with strengtheningthis department in TDH for
a very long time already.
(06:45):
However, and we are working in verydifferent regions of the world, so there
are counterparts of my position inmany different areas of the world.
And somehow, they all share the the sameidea that, unfortunately, local
organizations, even if they do have theunit, the capacities, the understanding,
(07:09):
and the scope of work is not very clear.
And sometimes they need a bit of capacitystrengthening, especially because most of
the professionals in the field are comingfrom organization or an area when M&E was
not separated by the projectmanagement and implementation team.
(07:33):
So it's still a bit of a struggle toreally make sure that the function is
understood properly and it is separatedfrom the program implementation team.
How do you characterize your collaborationwith these local organizations?
What are the main challenges youencounter in your day-to-day work?
(07:57):
Yeah.
One of the things that I was mentioningeven before is the fact that even if the
structure exists, there is a needfor a very strong capacity building.
And not only theoretically,but also in a practical way.
Somehow, I think that after a while inthis sector, we all agree that
(08:17):
most of our projects are a bittheoretical, are ambitious, and sometimes
they lack practical steps on howto happen, how to become a reality.
We have very good and broad ambitions,like we want to change the life of the
children in the street situation oraffected by migration or by war, like the
(08:40):
Ukrainian children that we areworking a lot in the recent years.
But how to exactly do that and how toreally understand that
we are having an impact?
What are the indicators to show thatwe are actually changing the realities?
Or what are the measurementswe have to put in place on?
(09:00):
What are the exact steps that we haveto put in place in order to do that?
That is not very clear.
And that's why the practical capacities ofgood M&E or MEAL person came very handy.
The more concrete and the more operationalthe plan is, the easier is to be measured,
(09:23):
to be monitored, and to be objective inwhat you are assessing or
what you are evaluating.
What is a strong M&E person or a veryexperienced or a professional M&E
person that is bringing to the table?
It's really helping the theoreticalconcepts to be much more concrete, to be
(09:47):
measurable, to be smart, to be achievable,to be timely-bounded, and all these the
things that are in alignment with whatwe can do during a lifetime of a project.
And the better we do this,there is an expression in M&E or in the
theoretical background of the monitoring,evaluation, accountability, and learning
arena that says (10:08):
If we fail to plan, we plan to fail.
So the planning or the design or how wereally design our path, what we are going
to do, what are the milestone, what we areneeding to achieve in a certain amount of
time, and how we are going to measure it,which is a big part of the M&E work.
(10:33):
If we are not doing it properly at thebeginning, then we will go and have a very
big path, and we will not make sure thatwe are going in the right direction.
We will have a lot of coordination issues.
So we are really planningto fail, as they are saying.
(10:53):
This is a bit of harsh terminology, butsometimes it's true, if we really do not
focus a lot on understanding what we are.
There is another expression that is aroundin the NGO world that you will never
listen or hear an NGO worker saying that: my project is going as it was planned, (11:09):
undefined
because there is alwayssomething happening.
There is always a postponementor delay or something happening.
So the fact that the implementation, theNGO sector is so unpredictable,
imagine then how difficult it will be tomeasure a project or to implement a
(11:34):
project that has not clear goals, that hasnot clear pathways, and then has a lot of
contextual changes duringthe implementation period.
And when you go at the end, when we havethe final evaluation, then you are going
to agree on the on the worthof the entire intervention.
You don't know what you are measuring, youdon't know what were the first initial
(11:57):
ambitions, what have you done, whatwas What was supposed to be done?
What was sometimes even the commitmentthat you took with the donor?
It's becoming a bit of a nightmare for anevaluator to agree on the
project impact and worth.
So that's why a MEAL person should befrom the beginning, from the start.
(12:20):
The MEAL capacities arevery important in an NGO.
During the entire project implementationlifetime, during the entire
life of the NGO itself.
Because it is one of the worst and mostdifficult things in our line of work.
It's actually to articulate theimpact of what you have done.
(12:45):
Because sometimes it's verysubjective, the change.
Sometimes it's very subtle.
It's very difficult to be visible.
And because it's very subjective,two people can have different opinions on
the same change and on the same impact.
So that's why we are taking a lot ofrigoureous measurements from academia,
(13:07):
from universities, from research,to make sure that when we say that, yes,
this project was successful becausethis indicator or this target were reach.
The statements are strong froma theoretical point of view.
The percentages are there.
So we are really taking a lotof the academia and be used during the
(13:28):
NGO sector to make sure that what we aresaying is strong enough and
significant enough in terms of findingsand achievements of the implementation.
I understand the goodwill of ahumanitarian worker is not enough
for a project to be successful.
The goodwill, and we all believethat the goodwill is always there.
(13:52):
But unfortunately, for a very long time,big NGOs, like donor NGOs,
had these question marks.
So there are two question marks thatactually MEAL helps to solve is,
are we doing the right thing?
And are we doing the rightthing in the right way?
So they were really having this questionmark about the money they were spending.
(14:14):
Are we really having a real impact?
Or it's just a wishful thinking from thepeople that are actually implementing
those projects that they are saying, weare changing the world
or changing the realities of thepeople we are trying to help.
It It was not enough forthem, just the wishful.
(14:34):
It might not always be wishful or it mightbe a lot of change there, but it's
not, let's say, evidence-based.
We are always talking about theseevidence-based statements more and in the
in the recent period just because of that.
And we are also talking more and moreabout speaking
with the voice of beneficiariesand not with the voice of project staff
(14:58):
or the voice of helpers, of NGO workers.
So you already mentioned a lot of goodpractices and how the sector is changing.
But what other good practices do you seewhen it comes to local organizations?
There is an increased hunger, if wecan say, for capacity development.
(15:20):
So that's a very good thing.
And the fact that most of theorganizations you are mentioning
agreed to to create this unit, and theywant also to build their capacities
is a very strong and good practice.
What I really think that it should be donemore in the local NGOs as they are today
(15:45):
is to give a bit more of independence anddecision making power or to listen to the
professionals that are in those units.
Because sometimes what is the mostdifficult task of an M&E, it's to voice
things that are going wrong whenthe implementers are their bosses.
(16:10):
So it's a bit of a tricky situation andyou really need a powerful voice
in order to be able to say...
Because nobody wants to go in anevaluation at the end of the project and
understand that the project was not goingin the right direction or
things were not done properly.
So that's why you need verystrong monitoring practices.
(16:32):
So you can highlight issues and you cantake the management decision to do the
course correction, the needed coursecorrections, to really make sure
that you are achieving the goal.
Basically, the function is not workingproperly if they are not
able to voice their concerns.
That's why the unit should be very muchindependent, very much professional,
(16:57):
because we don't even want MEAL people tohijack the entire process, just because
they are thinking thatit's not working very well.
It's a very important unit, and it shouldbe a very strong and very capable unit to
really make sure thatwhen something is not right, they are able
to behave as watchdogs and reallyhighlight the things that need
(17:21):
to be changed in a timely manner.
So that's one of thebest practices that would really
encourage every small localNGO to focus on in the future.
It's really interesting.
As a final advice,and to finish our podcast, what is the one
(17:44):
advice you would give to an NGO aboutyour area of expertise?
It's more and more important.
It's very much a need for us to beaccountable because whatever we do at the
end of the day, we need to be accountableto whoever is giving us the money,
being them internal managementteams or external donors.
(18:09):
But we also have to be accountable to thebeneficiaries that entrust it as with
their time, with their resourcessometimes, with their willingness to
participate, and with their desire toimprove whatever is the realities
and the situations they are in.
So we need to really make sure that we arecollecting the right information,
(18:32):
the right data, we areasking the right questions.
From the right question, we areunderstanding the right information, and
we are using this informationto make the right decisions for them
and to make the right work and impactfulimplementation
as everybody deserves to be.
(18:54):
That's a very important advice.
So please strengthen your MEALstructures, your MEAL units or people.
Sometimes it's only one person, but yeah,and give them the opportunity to be fair
with what they are doing and to behave.
(19:16):
Don't shut the voices of the MEALs becauseit's totally counterproductive for
their function.
So thank you very much and hope to see youon our next episode, perhaps on some other
professional MEAL-related discussion.
(19:37):
I'm Enikő Vass, and you've beenlistening to a Local Link Hub podcast.
We had help from Judit Németh-Almási .
Thank you very much.
Thanks to all of you for listening, andthank you to Mariela Lazi for joining
me today on this LocalLink Hub podcast.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
(19:57):
If you want to learn more about Terre deshommes initiative, please
visit our website, locallink.childhood.
org.
If you have any comments on the episode orwant to share your thoughts, contact us
via social media on Facebook or LinkedIn,or email us on locallink@childhub.
(20:20):
org.
Thank you, and see youon our next episode.
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