Both tools make up a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system that provides digital support to the “El Futuro de la Alimentación” and “PROMESA Café & Cacao” programs. This boosts the management of production chains through automation, digital transformation, and technological innovation serving sustainable rural development.
The Challenge: Monitoring Impact at Scale
Heifer Ecuador manages two large-scale rural development programs impacting over 33,000 producer families across five provinces in the country. Both programs—El Futuro de la Alimentación and PROMESA Café & Cacao—operate under complex results frameworks, with multiple value chains, territorial actors, and measurable objectives that demand a robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system.
Without a centralized tool, tracking indicators relied on manual processes and static reports that hindered real-time decision-making. Information regarding producers, donors, and allied organizations remained fragmented, without the possibility of cross-referencing territorial variables with the actual progress of the programs.
1. Web Platform: M&E Data Collection and Management
Urbadigital’s team developed a functional web platform that acts as the operational core of the monitoring system. The platform allows for registering, managing, and structuring information from Heifer’s three key ecosystem actors: donors, allied organizations, and producer families. Its design directly responds to the value chain logic promoted by the programs: each entered piece of data—by product, province, or organization—feeds the evaluation system and allows measuring progress toward the objectives established in the FOF and PROMESA results frameworks. User experience was a priority from the start: intuitive navigation, responsive design, and dynamic filters that facilitate access to segmented information without requiring advanced technical knowledge.
2. Power BI Dashboard: M&E System Visualization
The dashboard developed in Power BI is the data analytics layer of the monitoring and evaluation system. It transforms the information collected through the web platform into visual, actionable, and comparable indicators over time. The tool allows Heifer Ecuador teams to monitor the fulfillment of their program objectives, analyze territorial progress by province and production chain, and generate strategic reports for donors like GIZ and the European Union. Everything is in an automated environment that eliminates reliance on manual processes.
· El Futuro de la Alimentación (FOF)
Urbadigital’s M&E system provides digital support for tracking the three strategic objectives of this program: increasing climate resilience, improving the profitability of small producers, and strengthening responsible commercial networks. The dashboard allows visualizing progress toward the program’s central goal: that by 2030, over 16,000 families achieve a decent income and another 19,000 improve their quality of life. The indicators are disaggregated by intervention component—sustainable production, bio-businesses, organizational strengthening—and by production chain: cacao, coffee, quinoa, corn, fruits, and innovative products like chocho snacks or Palo Santo derivatives.
· PROMESA Café & Cacao
For this program, the monitoring system integrates the four action areas defined in its Results Framework: Competitiveness, Services, Commercialization, and Resilience. Each one has differentiated results, products, and interventions for the coffee and cacao chains, all traceable from the web platform and visualizable in the dashboard. The automation of the data flow allows real-time tracking of a $4.2 million investment distributed between 2023 and 2027, covering Guayas, Los Ríos, El Oro, Loja, and Zamora Chinchipe. The system also supports the monitoring of innovation components such as digital traceability with Blockchain and organic certification systems.
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