Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are key areas of technical support that should be provided by CARDS to their partner NGOs and CBOs. However, CARDS is committed to building and maintaining a comprehensive M&E system of its own, the M&E support it provides to partners is unlikely to be effective. This section introduces the basic concepts of monitoring and evaluation, and describes the key stages involved in building an M&E system for CARDS but also provides guidance on how CARDS can provide support to NGOs/CBOs to develop their own M&E systems.