Capturing most significant change stories from the Africa RISING project in Ethiopia
Since early 2014, the Africa RISING project in Ethiopia has been using the ‘most significant change’ (MSC) approach to enrich its monitoring and evaluation work. The MSC approach complements more quantitative approaches, giving richer and more complete insights about outcomes from Africa RISING interventions. It records what beneficiaries and other actors in a project see as ‘significant’ changes in their eyes. This brief introduces insights from the experience so far.
Key messages
- Qualitative evidence is important to promote Africa RISING outcomes.
- The most significant change (MSC) approach is a way to systematically collect qualitative information.
- It provides a mechanism for many project actors to specify their outcomes and their measures of progress; these complement or may challenge the project leaders.
- Our experiences shows that MSC is powerful in fostering learning and improvement.
