M&E Glossary
Every organisation has its own way of defining terms like inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts, which can make things confusing.
Here’s a simple guide to help understand these concepts more clearly:
Inputs: The money, people, and materials needed for a project.
Example: Workers sorting plastic waste; money, builders, and cement to build a warehouse.
Activity: Actions that use inputs to produce results.
Example: Training communities to sort plastic; sorting plastic; transporting plastic to the project site; creating an M&E toolkit.
Output: The first level of results in a project.
Outputs are often confused with activities, but they are different. An output is something new that is available to the people it is meant for, such as a product, service, or increase in knowledge or awareness. The key difference from an activity is that an output must be accessible or usable by its intended audience.
Examples: A workshop participant gains new knowledge; decision-makers become more aware of a serious risk; a report is available to those who need it.
A completed activity is only an output when it reaches the right people. For example:
Activity only: “M&E toolkit developed.” (If it’s not shared, it won’t make an impact.)
Proper output: “M&E toolkit shared with CBOs and SMEs.” (Now it can be used.)
Outcome: The second level of results in a project.
Outcomes show how the intended target groups use an output, leading to changes in behaviour, attitudes, or conditions. They reflect real changes, such as people adopting new practices or institutions improving their ways of working.
There can be different levels of outcomes, depending on when they happen during the project: direct outcomes and project outcomes.
Direct outcome: A change that happens before the project ends as a result of people using the project’s outputs.
Example: A project runs a campaign telling communities that the Flipflopi Project will buy sorted plastic waste. If community members then start collecting, sorting, and bringing plastic waste, this is a direct outcome – it shows they have acted on the information from the campaign.
Project outcome: A change that is expected to happen by the end of the project’s timeframe or funding period.
Example: Community members regularly dispose of their plastic waste properly.
Impact: The third level of project results, showing long-term changes that happen directly or indirectly because of the project.
Example: A reduction in plastic pollution.
Results: The changes a project creates through cause and effect. These changes must be clear and measurable.
Example: 500 community members (300 women, 200 men) now sort and dispose of their plastic waste properly every month, reducing plastic leakage into the environment by 30%.
Outputs, outcomes, and impact are all considered results, while inputs and activities are not.
