By Beth Cunningham, Senior Associate and MEL Practice Lead

At Banyan Global, a women-owned small business, we believe that evidence should serve as the foundation for successful project design and implementation. It should offer guidance for mid-project course corrections and be disseminated strategically to continually strengthen programming. We provide monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) services to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other clients at the activity, sector, and strategy levels to improve the effectiveness of development efforts. We are currently leading the five-year, USAID Learn to Perform (L2P) Activity in Malawi. L2P provides full-spectrum MEL and strategic planning services across USAID/Malawi’s technical sectors and integrated development objectives to improve the Mission’s performance management, enhance program efficiency, and advance Mission learning.

As a long-term MEL partner for the Mission just concluding our first year of implementation, we have been able to leverage data, evidence, and learning across various MEL activities for maximum impact. For example, we have collaborated with the Mission’s Sustainable Economic Growth (SEG) office to strengthen their Feed the Future (FtF) programming through a period of significant transition. The Mission’s SEG office is developing a new country-level strategy, closing out its seven-year flagship FtF activity, the Agricultural Diversity Activity, or AgDiv, and launching a new one, Growth Poles.

Figure L2P verifies AgDiv reported data.

L2P has supported the SEG office throughout this transition with a number of MEL services. In December 2022, we verified key output data reported by AgDiv and conducted a survey of 1,835 AgDiv beneficiaries to rigorously assess progress towards key outcomes, such as production and access to markets. In September and October 2023, we are leveraging that verified output data and beneficiary survey data to inform a broader endline performance evaluation of AgDiv that will provide evidence-driven lessons learned for the management of Growth Poles. Concurrently, L2P is leading the development of the Mission’s Country Plan under the Global Food Security Strategy, informed by data and learning generated by L2P and others and based on a participatory approach to ensure the plan reflects local priorities and needs.

Figure L2P organizes community consultations for Malawi’s Country Plan for the Global Food Security Strategy.

L2P’s Chief of Party shared that “We have enjoyed working with USAID/Malawi over the last year to help grow their knowledge and evidence base and advance their learning agenda. We’ve worked extensively with the SEG team and our support to their Feed the Future programming is just one example of how Banyan Global leverages evidence and learning in a virtuous cycle to ensure that individual MEL activities are greater than the sum of their parts and help clients achieve development results.”