Yeukai Tizora

The study seeks to investigate how M&E has changed under the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on the challenges and opportunities that it has brought for M&E practitioners with a focus on the Gauteng Province in South Africa. The research findings will be important in allowing M&E practitioners to position themselves in the event of unfortunate disasters in the future. Proper positioning during a pandemic in the future will allow effectiveness, and efficiency and enable M&E to continue during a pandemic. The pandemic presented new challenges in the M&E sector that practitioners had to deal with to fulfil their daily operations. This was further intensified by the stringent COVID-19 regulations followed by a series of nationwide lockdowns to curb the rapid spread of the virus. The restrictions imposed on the public meant that practitioners had to do away with face-to-face monitoring and evaluation. Evidently, M&E became extremely difficult and, in some cases, almost impossible up until practitioners aligned themselves and swiftly adapted to new rules and regulations. Interestingly, methods of data collection and possibly data processing were impacted either positively or negatively. However, COVID-19 has not only presented obstacles or challenges but also provided new possibilities for M&E professionals and areas of expansion. COVID-19 driven innovation resulted in significant improvements in the M&E field, including technology and data handling. To minimise its spread recommendations were made to adopt remote M&E which many practitioners were not accustomed to. Taking lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic could open a window of improvement in how M&E can be done and improved. Furthermore, failure to learn from the pandemic and the new way of doing things could be detrimental if a similar crisis arises in the future. As such this study endeavors to document lessons learned from different M&E practitioners and enable sharing of best practices.