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Monitoring & Evaluation for NGOs and Development Projects

Theory of change, logframes, SMART indicators, field data collection done ethically, clean data, honest analysis, donor reports and evaluations: the M&E officer's job from a Nigerian project.

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About this course

Every donor-funded project in Nigeria needs someone who can prove what it achieved, and 'M&E officer' is one of the most common job titles in the NGO sector, from small community organisations in Jos to international agencies in Abuja. This course teaches the job from the first week. You will learn what monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning mean and why donors insist on them, how to draw a theory of change and build a logframe with SMART indicators and indicator reference sheets, how to write an M&E plan and map the data flow, how to design questionnaires and interview guides and collect data in the field on paper or by phone while protecting children and vulnerable people, how to manage and clean a dataset and check its quality, how to analyse results and say honestly what changed, how to write quarterly and annual reports and dashboards that programme officers actually read, how baseline, midline and endline evaluations work and what the OECD DAC criteria ask, how feedback mechanisms and learning reviews make a project adapt, and how to build an M&E career. Every lesson follows a new M&E officer at a fictional girls' education project in Plateau State. Free, like every Skillnaija course.

On Monday morning Tunde Adebayo sits at a borrowed desk in the Hope Rising Foundation office off Bauchi Road, Jos, with a job title he has never held before: M&E officer for Girls Learn, Girls Earn. The project is fourteen months into a two-year grant from the Amara Fund. Mrs Ladi Gyang, the programme manager, hands him three things: a laptop with three spreadsheets that disagree about how many girls are enrolled, a logframe in a PDF that nobody has opened since the proposal was written, and an email from Ms Okereke at the donor asking why the last quarterly report counted the school kits distributed but said nothing about whether the girls are still in school. 'The next report is due in five weeks,' Mrs Gyang says. 'Make sense of it.'

What you'll learn

Course syllabus — 12 lessons

  1. What M&E is and why the job exists15 min
  2. Theory of change and the results chain16 min
  3. The logframe and SMART indicators16 min
  4. The M&E plan and the data flow15 min
  5. Designing data collection tools16 min
  6. Collecting data in the field, ethically16 min
  7. Data management: one master sheet, clean and defensible16 min
  8. Analysis: from numbers to honest findings16 min
  9. Reporting to donors, boards and the community16 min
  10. Evaluation: baseline, midline, endline and the DAC criteria16 min
  11. Accountability, learning and adaptive management15 min
  12. The M&E officer's career, tools and the project17 min

Your project

Your M&E Starter File

One document (Google Doc with view access, or an uploaded Word or PDF file) with a headed section for each of the six parts, plus a link to or upload of the spreadsheet from Part 5. Everything fictional; no real personal data.

Certificates on Skillnaija are earned, not issued for attendance: you submit this project, it is graded against a rubric, and passing issues a certificate anyone can verify. See the full project brief, rubric and free workbook →

Frequently asked questions

Is Monitoring & Evaluation for NGOs and Development Projects free?

Yes. Monitoring & Evaluation for NGOs and Development Projects is completely free on Skillnaija. You need a free account to open the lessons, and there is no charge for the course, the project, or the certificate.

How long does Monitoring & Evaluation for NGOs and Development Projects take to complete?

6 weeks · ~4 hrs/week. There are 12 lessons, about 3 hours of material in total. You learn at your own pace and your progress is saved.

Do I need any experience to start Monitoring & Evaluation for NGOs and Development Projects?

Beginner-friendly. You can start from scratch — no prior experience is assumed.

What will I learn in Monitoring & Evaluation for NGOs and Development Projects?

You will build practical skills in Monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning, Theory of change and results chains, Logframes and SMART indicators, M&E plans and data flow, Questionnaire and tool design, Ethical field data collection and safeguarding, Data management and quality assurance, Descriptive analysis and disaggregation, Donor reporting and dashboards, Evaluation design and the OECD DAC criteria, Feedback mechanisms and adaptive management, M&E tools and career paths. Every lesson is written for a Nigerian context, with examples drawn from how the work is actually done and paid for here.

Do I get a certificate for Monitoring & Evaluation for NGOs and Development Projects?

Yes, but it has to be earned. You complete the course project — Your M&E Starter File and submit it for grading. Passing the project issues a verifiable certificate; finishing the lessons alone does not.

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