An understanding of monitoring and evaluation is essential for distinguishing between the two, as well as determining their scope and timing, whether prior to (ex-ante) or following (ex-post) their implementation.

The importance of monitoring and evaluation lies in the possibility of continuous oversight of actions taken and review of advances in social policy fulfilment, that make it possible to decide ways to improve on and adjust policy actions.

The diverse monitoring and evaluation typologies are grouped by process, results or impact, which are catalogued as ex ante and ex post. They also contain various essential components like strategic alignment, institutional arrangements, methodologies and uses.

Relevant monitoring and evaluation experiences reveal the extent of National System institutionalization that allows for both to be conducted with greater depth, detail and usefulness on the strength of laws and methodological development.

Linkages with the normative legal framework, available technical training and funding, information availability and goal clarification are all in need of strengthening to achieve better monitoring and evaluation results.