Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, & Adaptation (MELA) 

The MELA Workstream: A Driving Force in Enhancing Research Engagement and Knowledge Exchange within the Health Collaborative.

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About MELA

MELA Workstream and Co-Creation Workshop  

The MELA workstream engaged all ten members of the Health Collaborative including the Mastercard Foundation to ensure alignment with the Foundation’s Impact Strategy. The Co-creation workshop was held in Cape Town, South Africa on October 11-12, 2023, alongside the first annual convening.

The Workshop included representation selected from across all members of the Health Collaborative and across the three pillars (HEMP, HENT and HECO). The MELA workshop was  designed to be interactive and used a co-creation and consultative approach. The workshop was scheduled to maximize learning from the Needs Assessment Research (NAR) study underway and to inform the multi-year evaluation research.  

Goals: The MELA Workstream aims to: 

  • Strengthen engagement among HC PAC members and researchers 
  • Foster knowledge creation (MELA framework) and knowledge exchange among partners  
  • Facilitate collaborative discovery, collective learning, and knowledge mobilization to exchange and utilize research insights
  • Inform the evaluation/research terms of reference (TOR), establish structure of the MELA collaboration, data infrastructure, and ensure sustainability of joint research work within the Collaborative 
  • Create a platform for continued research engagement among Health Collaborative partners, to share research and evaluation process innovations and challenges 
  • Contribute to partners’ research capacity building through continued research engagement  

Outcomes

  1. Applied insights from the Needs Assessment Research (NAR) study and related IRB implications for interdisciplinary, multi-country, collaborative studies
  2. Informed how to integrate and mainstream Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) framework into evaluation and research procedures 
    • People capacity, platforms, tools, and processes  
    • Reflection on process and program monitoring and evaluation data, including data from scholar applications, courses, programs, and session evaluations 
  1. Validated the program Performance Monitoring Framework (PMF) 
    • Identify key operations research questions
    • Identify key qualifications for the external evaluation team  
  2. Applied insights from the Needs Assessment Research (NAR) study and related IRB implications for interdisciplinary, multi-country, collaborative studies
  3. Informed how to integrate and mainstream Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) framework into evaluation and research procedures 

MELA Co-Creation Workshop Outcomes  

  1. Facilitate learning and shared understanding of MELA concepts   
  2. Co-created evaluation/research terms of reference (TOR), that will support and facilitate collaborative research work among partners  
  3. Ensure GESI mainstream MELA strategy co-designed by the partners 
  4. Summary of the Co-creation Workshop discussions will be provided in a formal report

Co-Creation Workshop Participants 

The Co-creation workshop engaged teams from all partner institutions, who also attended the first annual Convening for the Health Collaborative in Cape Town, South Africa. To facilitate program implementation, Program Leads who may not be part of the Pillar Advisory Committees (PAC) were included as they are integral to research studies emanating from MELA work