A Constellation of Stars with Purpose, or How to Navigate the MEL Maze

This is a story how USAID/BiH embarked on the exciting journey of trying to implement Local Works in its programs. The cross-cutting effort involved employees and partners from different offices and countries using various tools to design a holistic initiative with multiple activities. However, one of the biggest hurdles we faced was creating a common MEL plan indicators' framework for our five Local Works activities.

The decision to use the CLA framework and its various elements came natural to us. Sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly, we already realized we implemented CLA in our previous work. Being faced with a task as complex as this one, we knew that CLA would strongly improve overall process. In doing so, we knew that only using one subcomponent would not be sufficient, thus we decided to have a myriad of them to guide us through the creation of MEL plans.

While it is too early to tell at this stage, we are certain that the quality of our MEL plans will lead to better monitoring and evaluation processes, it will allow us to learn from the progress we are making, or lack of it, and hopefully it will lead to better outcomes for USAID, our partners and all other stakeholders.