GRID Impact

De-colonizing and Co-designing Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning in Africa

The GRID Impact team recently facilitated a transformative Made in Africa convening in Tamale, Ghana, to develop a Proof of Concept (PoC) for MAE, focusing on Central, North, and West Africa. This workshop brought together African academic experts, MEL practitioners, youth and gender representatives, knowledge holders, and thought leaders. Over three days, we co-designed tools, frameworks, and protocols to decolonize existing project evaluation practices in Africa, placing African voices at the center of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) and development discourses.

African evaluation knowledge, methodologies, and practices have been historically marginalized. Let us envision a future where Africa reshapes its own narratives. To succeed, decolonizing and reimagining MAE MEL methods and practices must start by understanding the current systems of evaluation. Decolonization, in the realm of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL), is a profound and transformative process aimed at dismantling the entrenched frameworks and methodologies imposed by colonial powers and external influences. This project seeks to address and rectify historical power imbalances by reclaiming and integrating indigenous African knowledge, practices, and methodologies into the current practices of MEL.

Continued in comments!

✨ 2024 has been a year of transformative impact at GRID Impact! ✨

💚 We facilitated a large convening for , bringing together diverse stakeholders in a space grounded in feminist and decolonized principles to co-create strategies for systemic change.

🙋🏽‍♀️ We re-launched our research on Women’s Financial Inclusion barriers and opportunities with an improved website, making our findings more accessible and actionable for partners around the globe.

🏩 Sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we led a series of convenings for donors and stakeholders to drive coordinated and collaborative funding to advance digital public infrastructure initiatives.

📣 In partnership with Open Society Foundations, we conducted equity-centered research on the lives and needs of human rights activists in exile, amplifying their voices and identifying pathways to support their critical work.

🌍 As part of our partnership with Mastercard Foundation, we explored indigenous approaches to monitoring, evaluation, and learning in Africa, deepening our understanding of community-driven and culturally resonant practices.

⭐ As 2024 comes to a close, we are filled with gratitude for the inspiring people and organizations we’ve partnered with. Here’s to an impactful 2025!

💜 To our team, thank you to all of our creative, empathetic, talented, thoughtful Collective members for your contributions throughout 2024. The work we do is complex and you bring humor, rigor, and compassion to all of our engagements.

We are proud to release this new resource for all of our financial inclusion and consumer protection partners! GRID Impact, in partnership with Dr. Maritza Johnson and the Center for Financial Inclusion at ACCION International, developed The Privacy as Product Playbook, based on the central tenets and emerging practices in Privacy by Design. The Playbook is a result of CFI’s partnership with PayPal’s Global Privacy Team and is animated by unique considerations for inclusive finance product teams. The accompanying brief is intended for all practitioners in the inclusive finance space, sharing the rationale and approach for the playbook and discussing three key challenges for implementation that were uncovered when designing the playbook, how the playbook attempts to address them, and what learning questions remain.


https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/privacy-as-product-privacy-by-design-for-inclusive-finance