Monitoring programmes for adolescent health and well-being 

Programme monitoring is the systematic collection of data to check on the progress of a programme. It aims to answer the question, “Are we doing what we planned to do?” It is an essential component of programmes, and crucial to guide efforts and investments. It is also a critical tool for advocacy to spur further effort and investment. 

It is important for adolescent health and well-being programmes to monitor the full range of indicators from inputs and processes through outputs, outcomes and impacts; these answer different questions and are useful for different purposes.  

Evaluation of programmes for adolescent health and well-being 

While monitoring is the systematic collection of data to check on the progress of a programme or the implementation of an intervention, evaluation assesses the degree to which a programme fulfils its goals and objectives. It answers questions such as, “Is the programme run in an effective and efficient way?” Evaluations contribute to the overall evidence base for the effectiveness of interventions and can be used to improve or redirect implementation and for subsequent programme planning. They can be conducted either by internal programme staff or by external evaluators. Monitoring data are a major resource for any programme evaluation.  

Countries should conduct periodic evaluations of the degree to which their adolescent health and wellbeing programme is meeting its goals and targets. 

Support to countries for monitoring adolescent health programmes 

Many countries have empirical data on some but not all of the adolescent health indicators recommended by the GAMA Advisory Group. WHO, the Health Data Collaborative and other entities are working with countries to improve the availability, quality and use of data for local decision-making and tracking of progress toward the health-related SDGs. For meaningful monitoring and evaluation of programming for adolescent health and well-being, countries also need to ensure that they disaggregate data by age group and sex, as well as other factors as feasible.