Blog post
Challenges of M&E for Capacity Building Projects
Michelle DeFreese,
Leland Fellow
Published 2016
8th class Leland Fellow, Michelle DeFreese wrote this blog post profile of Dr. Flavianus Magayane’s role in evaluating iAGRI’s impact on its student participants and his thoughts on the challenges of capturing the impact of investments in human capacity.
iAGRI staff recently participated in a Monitoring and Evaluation workshop of Feed the Future partners in Kigoma, Tanzania. This month’s guest blog post features Dr. Flavianus Magayane, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and one of the participants in the workshop. At iAGRI, Dr. Magayane monitors the progress, reports M&E data to the Feed the Future, and ensures that the most effective methods for monitoring and evaluation are used across the organization. He is also a Senior Lecturer in SUA’s Department of Agricultural Education and Extension, where he teaches sociology, participatory research approaches, extension, and survey research methods. Here, Dr. Magayane describes some of the challenges of measuring success of capacity building and institutional strengthening projects focused on agricultural research and development.
Publication tags: Blog post - Higher Education in Agriculture, International Agricultural Development, Monitoring and Evaluation
Michelle received her BSc degree in Anthropology at Rutgers University and studied abroad at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She completed an MA in International Affairs at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), University of Geneva in Switzerland. During her postgraduate studies, she completed internships at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome and the Permanent Mission of Timor-Leste to the United Nations in Geneva. Following her studies, Michelle was based at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico and traveled to document project activities, organize stakeholder focus groups, and carry out interviews of smallholder farmers and farmer cooperatives in Africa and Asia. Originally from New Jersey, Michelle is a polyglot and is looking forward to learning Swahili during her field placement.
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