Client: UNOPS/LIFT
When: 2014 to present

The Livelihood and Food Security Trust (LIFT) Fund is Myanmar's largest rural livelihood development programme, supported by over 12 bilateral donors. Initially established to provide a humanitarian response to Hurricane Nargis in 2008, LIFT's 2015 strategy marked a clear shift toward rural development and transition with an overarching focus on resilience. It sought to do this through a combination of regional and nation-wide programmes that aimed to help people 'Hang in, step up or step out'.

In 2015, LIFT supported the development of a new Monitoring and Evaluation for Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Framework. This outlined LIFT's strategic approach to M&E at the national, programmatic and project levels through a series of TOCs, Evaluation and Learning Questions and Measurement Frameworks along with detailed guidelines for Implementing Partners. Since then, ALINE has been providing advisory and technical backstopping support to LIFTs M&E team with a view to supporting the implementation of the MEAL Framework. A major component of this is the coordination of all the LIFT level ELQ studies, working in close collaboration with a team of experienced evaluators, researchers and thematic experts hired by LIFT.

ALINE's support helped to establish a structured approach to MEL that offered considerable flexibility to LIFT programmes and IPs while also improving the way that they carried out M&E. In particular the introduction of TOCs as a tool for project and M&E framework design, complemented by targeted capacity support from LIFT evaluators, and the more flexible approach to project monitoring and outcome measurement addressed key challenges faced in previous rounds of support. The current focus on ELQs aims to demonstrate how evidence from different sources can be pulled together at the LIFT level to effectively tell the story of LIFT's impact and the learning emerging from its programmes.

ALINE is currently supporting LIFT with the development of its post-2018 strategy, working with key internal and external stakeholders to support integration and coordination throughout the process.