Impact, and how to measure it, is an essential component of an initiative like Africa CAN. To understand whether a project is making a positive difference, you first need to establish what success looks like in practice. These goals shaped the initiative’s comprehensive measurement framework, keeping the program on track, assessing and measuring progress along the way, monitoring the effectiveness of the training program and fellowships, and making adjustments to the methodology or approach as needed.
The key to effective monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning in this context lies in understanding that capacity-building is a multi-level process, with systemic improvements, institutional change, and individual learning. At the highest level, Africa CAN measures system transformation by tracking the number of government and social impact organizations that can demonstrate they are data-driven and how that has impacted their planning, implementation, and results, ensuring that measurement focuses on sustained behavior change rather than mere training completion. At the institutional level, the framework tracked organizational readiness and individual capacity development through the Data Maturity Assessment, providing baseline information about organizational readiness while also delivering value to participants through increased self-awareness about their data practices and capacity gaps. For individual learners, effective capacity-building creates a ripple effect, with knowledge and skills spreading beyond the immediate participants to their colleagues and broader institutional networks.