In July 2014, FSD Africa began an FSD network-wide consultative process to improve monitoring and results measurement (MRM) for financial market facilitation.

Its specific objectives were two-fold: a) to strengthen MRM processes within individual FSDs at the project and programme level, and b) to develop a more consistent approach to MRM across the FSD network.

Through their participation and with the support of specialists from Oxford Policy Management (OPM) and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), DFID and the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED), FSDs explored key MRM issues together. Topics included, for example:

• Developing a common terminology for MRM work to avoid confusion within an FSD and with key partners (especially donors) and achieve consensus more quickly
• Consolidating a rich, sometime complex portfolio of FSD project work into a single MRM framework that is coherent and measurable
• Determining the core components (measurement tools, processes, indicators and management) of an MRM system to enable an FSD to quickly develop an approach that is well-understood, practical and which provides evidence in a timely, useful manner
• Better defining and measuring change in financial market systems (that is both expected and unexpected) to help prove and improve an FSD’s market facilitation approach
• Determining an FSD network impact research agenda to create a better understanding of the causal relationships between certain kinds of financial sector interventions and the impact they are intended to generate

The result of this extensive consultation is the Impact Oriented Measurement framework, or IOM.

IOM is a comprehensive resource that helps FSDs, or FSD-like organisations, manage the challenge of measuring their contribution to changes in the market systems they seek to influence.  IOM offers guidance, not a prescription.

There is a high degree of consensus built-in to the model, which is informed by practical insights derived from FSD practice over a decade or more, but also OPM, CGAP, DFID and DCED.