When IICD started empowering people through ICT-enabled development in 1996, ICT was still a very new and unknown tool for development, particularly where poverty alleviation and rural access are concerned. Consequently, a sound Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system needed to be developed to measure IICD’s effectiveness and the development impact of IICD’s Country Programmes. This M&E system is part of a comprehensive method called the 'project scorecard evaluation tool'. Besides IICD’s effectiveness and development impact, also IICD’s financial contribution and the project and owner success are measured in this scorecard.

The input for the dimensions 'project and owner success' and 'project's financial contribution' is delivered by the progress reports produced on a quarterly basis by the local project managers.

The input for the dimensions 'project's development impact' and 'IICD's effectiveness' is more complicated. IICD's M&E system measures these two dimensions through questionnaires and Focus Group Meetings. For a more detailed description of the instruments, see IICD's M&E approach.

The development impact is measured by capturing the users' opinion of the project. The following dimensions are used to get an indication of the development impact:

1. Awareness: are users more aware of the possibilities of ICT?
2. Empowerment: do the users feel empowered through the project?
3. Economic impact: did users gain or expect to gain economic benefits (such as income and employment)?
4. Organisational / Sector impact: do the users experience any changes in their organisation or sector?
5. Negative impact: are there any (unexpected) negative consequences that took place as a result of the project?
6. Gender impact: did the project impact gender roles? For instance the influence women can exercise on the decision-making process in their organisation or community as a result of the project.

IICD's effectiveness is measured by asking the project partners about their level of satisfaction in terms of the key elements of the role and mission of IICD:

• Local ownership: the extent in which local partners feel that they are owners of the Roundtable process and resulting projects
• Assistance: IICD's quality and quantity of assistance provided in project formulation and implementation