Most M&E schemes collect information to measure project outputs, expenditures, etc. This type of information is clearly necessary for accountability to programme managers and funders; however, it is not sufficient to improve programme implementation. Besides "measuring" aspects of programme implementation, an M&E system should help project actors progressively "learn" how to improve implementation.

The M&E system in the CAR project was designed to do this. It comprises relatively simple ongoing activities involving the different levels of project actors and stakeholders. The aim is to help project actors document activities, share information and ideas and learn from the implementation process.

Documenting project activities: What was done? Who was involved? What did community members and project staff think about the activities? What are their suggestions for improvement? The CAR project used simple techniques to document this: Community logbooks: for each community group, a small notebook is kept in which the field coordinators note their observations and experiences with the activities carried out, accomplishments, constraints and feedback from group members.

Photos: photos showing significant aspects of the educational activities are taken, either by community members or project staff. Community members are asked to describe the pictures and explain what is important. These ideas are recorded beside each picture.

Informal discussions with community group leaders: on an ongoing basis, whenever coordinators come into contact with peer group leaders, they ask them how they think things are going, if they have encountered problems and what ideas they have for solving them. The key ideas are recorded in the group's logbook.

Sharing and learning: in the CAR project, documenting project activities is a first step but what is most important is what is done with that information. Several simple activities allow project actors to share the information and learn from it for action. 

Meetings with peer leaders: once a month, the field coordinators use a structured exercise with all the group leaders in their community to get: 1) their feedback on successes and constraints in implementing activities and 2) their suggestions on how to improve future activities. These are written in the "project book of lessons" for later follow-up.

Team meetings: periodically, the teams of coordinators meet to discuss how each group is evolving. They review the logbooks and photos, discuss the successes and problems and develop lessons on how to reinforce the groups in the future.

Meetings with the project manager: in periodic meetings with the project manager, the lessons are shared and discussed. She gives further suggestions on how to strengthen project implementation based on these lessons.

Meetings with the NAC: every few months the project manager and several field coordinators organize a meeting with NAC members to share and discuss the lessons learned. This sharing represents a kind of bottomup learning process that allows the top-level decisionmakers to receive detailed information both about what works and what doesn't.

Often M&E systems are complicated, requiring project staff to collect and send information to their superiors without seeing any direct relevance for their work. In the CAR project, staff have been receptive to the system because they helped develop it, it is relatively simple, and it has helped them learn how to do a better job implementing their own project.