The Monitoring and Evaluation Systems Analysis (MESA) tool is an important part of GEI’s integrated systems-based approach to supporting developing countries on their journey to strengthen monitoring, evaluation and evidence use. The MESA is a diagnostic tool that guides country stakeholders (e.g., government entities, evaluation professionals, civil society) in gathering, structuring and analyzing information on the current capacity of their country’s M&E ecosystem. It helps identify what is working well and what needs to be improved, informing capacity-development strategies meant to strengthen the economic, political, and social context that enables M&E to flourish.

A MESA is not an end in itself, but rather a means to gather, structure, and analyze information to inform and shape improvements to a country’s M&E systems.