Act Together

Community and Group Monitoring

Community groups and organizations monitor progress on action plans, including whether they are carrying out what they planned and how their efforts are affecting health and other desired outcomes. They may use checklists and conduct regular (e.g., monthly or quarterly) reviews of their action plans to determine the status of their activities. Monitoring activities alone is not sufficient; to ensure that activities are contributing to positive changes in health, groups also need to monitor health indicators related to the health goal. To do this, they can review information on health status (e.g., service records, health promoter reports, periodic surveys, or other surveillance systems). An example of a Bolivian community-based health information system is presented in the box below. Communities may also monitor how they generate and manage resources (e.g., budget monitoring, inventory lists), the relationships that they have established with others, and how they are structured and function as a group.

Many monitoring tools, written materials, and other resources are available to community groups. Your team should help these groups identify whether and how they could benefit from using them and adapt them as necessary. As always, you will need to work with communities to prioritize where they would like to focus and tailor your assistance to meet these needs first. Most importantly, monitoring should be integrated into the Act Together phase from the beginning and occur regularly throughout the program. The more systematic community groups can make monitoring, the better they will be able to observe change or lack of change and make timely adjustments in their strategies as necessary.

Individual and Family Monitoring
Program Team Monitoring
Donor and Stakeholder Monitoring