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MEL 360 and its Food Systems Toolkit
MEL 360 and its Food Systems Toolkit are a flexible, practical framework designed to help Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) professionals, funders, and managers apply systems-informed MEL in real-world projects, programmes, and portfolios.
They are especially useful when working on complex challenges and aiming for system-level change—for example, strengthening livelihoods and climate resilience across dryland landscapes in Kenya, or improving how food moves, is priced, and is accessed across rural and urban markets.
Rather than replacing existing MEL approaches, MEL 360 helps teams build on what they already do. It provides clear structure, shared language, and practical tools that make systems thinking usable within familiar planning, reporting, and accountability requirements.
Co-created with more than 160 professionals from 77 organizations, MEL 360 reflects real experience across development, humanitarian, and environmental contexts. It brings together systems thinking and everyday MEL practice in a way that feels practical and doable.
Spotlight: The Food Systems Toolkit
The Food Systems Toolkit enables practitioners and funders to connect project-level work to broader food system transformation.
In food systems, results are shaped by shifting relationships, incentives, and institutional conditions across the wider system. The toolkit provides the structure and tools to monitor these shifts and align interventions with long-term system change.
The Toolkit helps teams:
● Define clear system-level intent
● Clarify system boundaries and roles
● Identify leverage points and priority domains of change
● Track shifts in relationships, behaviors, and enabling conditions
● Adapt strategy as patterns evolve
Rather than adding another reporting layer, the Toolkit strengthens how existing MEL processes capture system-level progress.
For example, a programme working to improve market access for smallholder farmers may not only aim to increase yields or incomes. It may also seek to strengthen coordination between producers and buyers, improve trust in local trading relationships, or shift municipal procurement practices toward local sourcing.
MEL 360 helps teams track whether those relationships and incentives are actually shifting — not just whether planned activities were delivered. This creates a clearer line of sight between project work and wider system change.
Who it’s for
● MEL professionals and managers working on complex programmes and portfolios
● Funders and donors who want clearer insight into system‑level change
● Project teams, field officers, researchers and technical advisors who need concrete tools, not just concepts
Many practitioners describe MEL 360 as a bridge that makes systems‑informed learning feel practical and doable in their day‑to‑day work.
“I can attest that MEL 360 is a true bridge for practitioners, guiding the shift from traditional, results-based MEL to adaptive, systems-informed learning. What inspired me most was the practical application of strategic intent and domains of change in addressing real-world community challenges through innovative approaches. The resources and connections have transformed how I approach MEL in dynamic and complex environments in Uganda.”Uganda, Asibuku Jafari, Enabel, Field Officer
"The MEL 360 framework and practices have fundamentally shaped the strategic approach and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) structure for the Sustainable Agriculture for Forest Ecosystem (SAFE) project, particularly in addressing the high level of complexity involved (multi-donor alignment, global regulation, and local governance challenges). The most impactful tools were the Domains of Change Analysis and the identification of Leverage Points”Cameroon, Mouliom Njankouo Omar Bilal, GIZ, M&E Specialist
What Makes MEL 360 Different
1. Clear Foundations
Concise, accessible explanations of how systems thinking strengthens strategy, learning, and accountability in complex settings.
2. Three Guiding Principles
● Let Learning Lead
● Act Within the Whole
● Start Where You Are
Simple touchstones that help teams navigate complexity without becoming overwhelmed.
3. Two‑layered operational framework
Orientation Lens
Clarifies strategic intent, defines the system of focus, and makes your role explicit.
The Spiral
A structured cycle that helps teams review direction, revisit boundaries, surface patterns, adjust course, and build coherence over time.
4. Practical Tools
Step-by-step guidance notes, facilitation templates, domains of change analysis, leverage point identification tools, and a tool selector that helps teams combine tools at the right moment
