ADS 201 encourages USAID to look beyond just the performance of its strategies, projects, and activities when monitoring programming. Washington Operating Units (OUs) should also monitor the surrounding context.
ADS defines context monitoring as, “the systematic collection of information about conditions and external factors relevant to the implementation and performance of a Mission or Washington OU’s strategy, projects, and activities. This includes information about local conditions that may directly affect implementation and performance (such as non-USAID projects operating within the same sector as USAID projects) or external factors that may indirectly affect implementation and performance (such as macro-economic, social, or political conditions). Context monitoring should be used to monitor assumptions and risks identified in a CDCS Results Framework or project or activity logic model.”