Research and Evaluation

We provide high-impact and practicable MEL services across a range of sectors in development contexts within the Pacific and globally.

Our Approach

Generating practicable insights

Our focus is on producing practicable and real-time insights that can support adaptive and impactful programming. We prioritise outcomes tha tenable stakeholders to continue utilising the knowledge and skills in MEL that they have learnt beyond the short term. We also use digital storytelling methodologies to enhance understandings of change and the communication of findings and recommendations.

Tailored, accountable and transparent MEL

Across all our MEL support, transparency, participation, and accountability are at the forefront of what we do. We customise our services to meet the unique needs and contexts of our clients, including by aligning frameworks, indicators, and results chains with donor criteria.

Inclusive, contextual, and mixed-methods research

Square Circle is committed to MEL and research that is inclusive, locally informed, and sensitive to power differentials. We employ a range of approaches to ensure our research and MEL projects are socially inclusive throughout the design, data collection, reporting, and evaluation phases of the project lifecycle. We also utilise a range of quantitative and qualitative methods to triangulate data and findings, including relational mapping, surveys, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, outcome harvesting, and most significant change stories.

Embedding GEDSI in practice

Gender equality, disability, and social inclusion (GEDSI) is a cross-cutting theme in all our research and evaluation methodologies and is mainstreamed in our reporting. We think deeply about GEDSI principles from both a critical and practical lens, ensuring that our research and MEL projects are socially inclusive. We employ power-sensitive qualitative methods, such as digital storytelling, outcome harvesting, and most significant change, to understand and highlight the differential experiences of various groups, including women, men, youth, the elderly, and people living with disabilities. This includes specific evaluation questions to understand and highlight the inclusion and exclusion experiences of stakeholders. A social safeguarding approach is observed at all times to protect program actors and beneficiaries.

Key Capabilities

Social research

We conduct applied social research using qualitative and quantitative methods across a wide range of sectors.

MEL framework design

We facilitate and deliver participatory MEL design including Theory of Change, result chains, policies, guidelines, reporting templates, and systems and workflows.

MEL data and knowledge products

We build dashboards and data visualisation to communicate findings, and incorporate digital storytelling methods to capture stories and lived experiences of diverse stakeholders.

Evaluations

We conduct developmental evaluations, process evaluations, and impact evaluations.

MEL capacity building

We design and deliver workshops and training to build organisational capacity to conduct MEL in complex environments.

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