Welcome to the Monitor and Evaluate Heat Action module! Concurrent with heat planning, you will define and begin tracking key performance indicators to measure impacts of solutions. The process of monitoring and evaluating projects and policies begins from the early planning stages of their development and should be ongoing as the project or policy changes or is completed. Your indicators should measure both climate and human health impacts to holistically evaluate effectiveness.

This module provides best practices on monitoring and evaluating heat resilience and preparedness interventions. Ongoing measurement allows you to foreground community feedback and modify policies and interventions as needed to maximize impact and reduce potential harms. To support ongoing monitoring and evaluation, it is a best practice to create a data collection plan to track key performance indicators over time.

Monitoring heat projects and policies will reveal successes and failures in reducing heat impacts, as well as what aspects of the project may need further elaboration or investment. If you wish to scale, extend, or prove the effectiveness of the project, continuing to include and engage community members following a project co-creation process and gathering qualitative and quantitative data is an essential step.

Depending on the source of funding for the project, information on project budget and impact may need to be measured to report to the funder. Additionally, policymakers and practitioners often expend political capital to initiate and implement heat related projects. Demonstrating and communicating the effectiveness of projects can increase the popular support for and political capital of government leaders.

Monitoring is an ongoing process in an ever-evolving project or policy environment, while evaluations periodically assess project impact, both intentional and unintentional, at a deeper level. Demographic change, unexpected changes in climate, and other factors can drastically alter the context within which the project or policy is being implemented. Often the impact of projects will grow over time and a continuous approach to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) will reflect change over the short and medium term.

Establish a clear timeframe for monitoring (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.), what success metrics are essential to your stakeholders, and who is responsible for tracking and evaluating such indicators. Success metrics should be determined based on the priorities of community members who are most impacted by the project or policy, as well as any requirements from funders. For long-term projects, quarterly or annual reports may be beneficial or required by funders. The M&E plan can be as robust and detailed as your capacity and resources allow.

The outputs should be used to evaluate the success of the policy or project. This may be formalized in a report for either government leaders or the public. It should also be used to inform future measures, building on lessons learned including what was successful in this project and what could be improved upon. If you wish to expand the project, such as moving from a pilot in one area to the entire city, the outputs are helpful in informing the expansion.

M&E can be time-consuming and sometimes involve significant staff work. If leadership changes during the M&E process, buy-in for the investment needed may decline. Building robust M&E processes will allow for significant data to be captured and presented to new leadership to demonstrate the benefit of these policies. Additionally, the timeframe for success may be longer than outside forces prefer and staying the course may prove to be a challenge. M&E plans may need to be revised. Staying flexible and adaptable will help you track the projects in a sustainable way, and ensure that your work is making a positive impact.