Vice Versa reposted this
At yesterday's Measuring What Matters event, a critical question came to mind: Who truly holds the power to define impact—and are we comfortable with that answer? For many organizations, particularly those on the front lines, this isn’t a mere dilemma but a daily challenge. We operate within rigid frameworks and indicators, meticulously designed far from the realities of the communities we serve, pressured to align our missions within these constraints—all in the name of “accountability.” But whose accountability are we really serving? Are we measuring genuine impact, or merely conforming to an externally defined version of success? The hard truth is this: every metric is a choice about what—and more crucially, who—matters. Yet, rarely do we ask communities themselves what success looks like to them. Instead, we’re caught in cycles of data extraction, diverting resources from genuine impact to satisfy reporting mandates. And when it comes to the data we collect—where does it go? Does it circle back to communities in meaningful ways? Are we truly empowering, or simply monitoring? Outcomes and indicators are essential, but does our fixation on them overshadow true impact?For many Indigenous and African communities, success isn’t just a set of data points; it’s also about resilience, cultural continuity, and collective well-being—values that don’t conform to conventional metrics. Yet we persist in enforcing external frameworks that prioritize numbers over lived experiences, reinforcing systems that marginalize local knowledge. Imagine if we redefined success to honor these deeper measures of value. What if communities were involved in defining their own indicators of impact? What if our frameworks prioritized local relevance over distant approval? From a youth perspective, we have inherited systems that no longer fully meet the needs of our evolving realities. Do we perpetuate these cycles, or do we take the initiative to critically examine and reshape them? So let’s be honest with ourselves: *Who* is measuring what matters? And to whom does it *actually* matter? Special thanks to Tarini Shipurkar Lori Cajegas and Clara Bosco sharing perspectives that were not only thought-provoking but revolutionary. @Viceversa and @Wildwganzen for organising such a great discussion.
Advisor and consultant | Civil Society Resourcing | Civic Space | Enabling Agency & Activism | Social Justice Philanthropy | Innovation & Systems Change
3wThanks so much Eunice Mwaura for these important insights and for your final reflections last week. I was humbled to be part of such a candid and stimulating debate alongside Lori Cajegas, Tarini Shipurkar, Peter van der Knaap, PhD and yourself. Thanks to Vice Versa and Wilde Ganzen for organizing this world cafe and for inviting me. And much appreciation to Ama van Dantzig for the brilliant and engaging moderation! This question sat with me after the session: how can evaluation processes in international cooperation become an opportunity for joint learning and transformation? The high turnout and engagement of participants during (and after!) the session seems to suggest that we need more spaces to jointly reflect on the current MEL system and question its donor-centric and western dominant approaches. But, along with reflection and introspection, we also need spaces to co-create more meaningful and equitable frameworks and approaches to monitoring, learning, evaluation and accountability that build on indigenous knowledge systems and are centered on the lived experiences of the communities we seek to support.