Monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) are part of everyday programme management and are critical to the success of all Oxfam's programmes, including those operating in fragile contexts.

Without an effective MEAL system we would be unable to:

• track progress
• make adjustments
• discover unplanned effects of programmes
• judge the impact that we have made on the lives of those with whom we are working

A MEAL system also helps us to be accountable to our stakeholders through information sharing and developing a complaints or feedback mechanism which can help to guide programme implementation.

This quick guide, aimed particularly at those programming in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, includes the key principles of, and challenges to, MEAL in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, and a case study of MEAL in Somalia.