Monitoring & Evaluation

The question of whether sustainability policies and sustainability initiatives do deliver what they should be delivering is getting asked more frequently. How effective has a program or project been – has it contributed to the objectives (contribution)? To what extent was this contribution really important relative to other contributions – did it really make a difference (attribution)? And was the implementation efficient enough – could the same input have achieved more or could the same result have been achieved with less input? These are the types of questions that are central to monitoring and evaluation. Over the years, CREM has evaluated a wide variety of policy programs. This involves a number of steps:

• Reconstructing the policy process – in what way and against which background was the policy designed?
• Evaluating the degree to which the goals were SMARTly formulated – it is important to be able to assess if a (measurable) goal has been reached (on time).
• Assessing the logic of the intervention – is the choice of activities logical given the goals of the program and is this choice supported by the evidence?
• Assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of the program on the basis of an analysis of the input (budget, capacity), the throughput (the way that the program is organized and managed), the output (the concrete results), the outcome (the impact of the program in relation to the goals) and its sustainability (is the result permanent, also after the interventions are done?).

In addition, we support companies with the monitoring and evaluation of (international) projects, which are often made possible by government co-financing. In this process, we help to develop an unambiguous logical framework and then communicate what outputs and outcomes have been achieved. We also consider possible side-effects of the project, and look for opportunities to increase the positive impacts for the company and for society.