Aid Cuts and the Deprioritization of M&E: Lost Evidence, Lost Learning, Wasted Capacity, and Looming Implementation Errors
Aid is being cut. At the same time, monitoring and evaluation is being pushed down the priority list. The result is a multiple burden: fewer resources to deliver interventions, less ability to know what those resources achieved, wasted M&E capacity, and a looming cycle of costly mistakes because we lack the knowledge to streamline future projects.
Part of the problem is that donors are no longer demanding M&E as part of reporting on the limited funds that remain. When M&E is not a reporting requirement, it is the first thing implementers drop to protect service delivery. Without that demand, there is little incentive to keep systems running or to show results.
Our Loses:
Knowing impact: Without M&E, we cannot show whether programs improved health outcomes, reached the right people, or delivered value for money.
Learning from challenges and successes: Evaluations and learning reviews are postponed or cancelled. What worked is not scaled, and what failed is repeated.
Capacities built, then wasted: Years of investment in trained M&E officers, data systems, and local expertise are lost when positions end and platforms are left unsupported.
Less data does not mean fewer problems. It means problems we cannot see, and progress we cannot prove.
What we can do:
Donors: Keep M&E as a required part of reporting, even when funds are limited, and ring-fence a small share of budgets for it
Implementers: Keep a minimum core set of indicators running
Governments: Integrate M&E into routine information systems
All of us: Retain and build local capacity so systems outlast donor cycles, and document lessons before programs close
Limited funds make evidence more important, not less. Cutting aid reduces what we can deliver. Dropping M&E from reporting reduces what we can learn, prove, and sustain. We cannot afford to lose both.
RE: Evaluation under pressure : Strengthening evidence use, accountability and learning amidst funding constraints (Joint EvalforEarth-ALNAP discussion)
Ghana
Janet Awopole Yepakeh Tiah
Project Coordinator
University of Ghana
Posted on 13/10/2026
Aid Cuts and the Deprioritization of M&E: Lost Evidence, Lost Learning, Wasted Capacity, and Looming Implementation Errors
Aid is being cut. At the same time, monitoring and evaluation is being pushed down the priority list. The result is a multiple burden: fewer resources to deliver interventions, less ability to know what those resources achieved, wasted M&E capacity, and a looming cycle of costly mistakes because we lack the knowledge to streamline future projects.
Part of the problem is that donors are no longer demanding M&E as part of reporting on the limited funds that remain. When M&E is not a reporting requirement, it is the first thing implementers drop to protect service delivery. Without that demand, there is little incentive to keep systems running or to show results.
Our Loses:
What we can do: